Historic manuscripts at the Merton College library at Oxford.

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A book is a collection of leaves of paper, parchment or other material, bound together along one edge within covers. A book is also a literary work or a main division of such a work. A book produced in electronic format is known as an e-book. more...

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In library and information science, a book is called a monograph to distinguish it from serial publications such as magazines, journals or newspapers.

Publishers may produce low-cost, pre-proof editions known as galleys for promotional purposes, such as generating reviews in advance of publication. Galleys are usually made as cheaply as possible, since they are not intended for sale.

A lover of books is usually referred to as a bibliophile, a bibliophilist, or a philobiblist, or, more informally, a bookworm.

A book may be studied by students in the form of a book report. It may also be covered by a professional writer as a book review to introduce a new book. Some belong to a book club.

History

The oral account (word of mouth, tradition, hearsay) is the oldest carrier of messages and stories. When writing systems were invented in ancient civilizations, clay tablets or parchment scrolls were used as, for example, in the library of Alexandria.

Scrolls were later phased out in favor of the codex, a bound book with pages and a spine, the form of most books today. The codex was invented in the first few centuries A.D. or earlier. Some have said that Julius Caesar invented the first codex during the Gallic Wars. He would issue scrolls folded up accordion style and use the "pages" as reference points.

Before the invention and adoption of the printing press, almost all books were copied by hand, which made books comparatively expensive and rare. During the early Middle Ages, when only churches, universities, and rich noblemen could typically afford books, they were often chained to a bookshelf or a desk to prevent theft. The first books used parchment or vellum (calf skin) for the pages, which was later replaced with paper.

In the mid 15th century books began to be produced by block printing in western Europe (the technique had been known in the East centuries earlier). In block printing, a relief image of an entire page was carved out of wood. It could then be inked and used to reproduce many copies of that page. Creating an entire book, however, was a painstaking process, requiring a hand-carved block for each page. Also, the wood blocks were not durable and could easily wear out or crack.

The oldest dated book printed by the method of block printing is The Diamond Sutra. There is a wood block printed copy in the British Library which, although not the earliest example of block printing, is the earliest example which bears an actual date. It was found in 1907 by the archaeologist Sir Marc Aurel Stein in a walled-up cave near Dunhuang, in northwest China. The colophon, at the inner end, reads: Reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong .