The Books Portal
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A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images. Books are typically composed of many pages, bound together and protected by a cover. Modern bound books were preceded by many other written mediums, such as the codex and the scroll. The book publishing process is the series of steps involved in their creation and dissemination.
As a conceptual object, a book typically refers to a written work of substantial length, which may be distributed either physically or in digital forms like ebooks. These works are broadly classified into fiction (containing imaginary content) and non-fiction (containing content representing truths). Many smaller categories exist within these, such as children's literature meant to match the reading level and interests of children, or reference works that gather collections of non-fiction. Books are traded at both regular stores and specialized bookstores, and people can borrow them from libraries. The reception of books has led to a number of social consequences, including censorship.
A physical book does not need to contain written works: for example, it may contain only drawings, engravings, photographs, puzzles, or removable content like paper dolls. Physical books may be left empty to be used for writing or drawing, such as account books, appointment books, autograph books, notebooks, diaries and sketchbooks.
The contemporary book industry has seen several major changes due to new technologies. In some markets, the sale of printed books has decreased due to the increased use of ebooks. However, printed books still largely outsell ebooks, and many people have a preference for print. The 21st century has also seen a rapid rise in the popularity of audiobooks, which are recordings of books being read aloud. Additionally, awareness of the needs of people who can't access print media due to limitations like visual impairment has led to a rise in formats designed for greater accessibility, such as braille printing or formats supporting text-to-voice. Google Books estimated that as of 2010, approximately 130,000,000 unique books had been published. (Full article...)
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Frontispiece and title page of 1773 edition
Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies, published from 1760 to 1794, was an annual directory of prostitutes then working in Georgian London. A small pocketbook, it was printed and published in Covent Garden, and sold for two shillings and sixpence. A contemporary report of 1791 estimates its circulation at about 8,000 copies annually.
Each edition contains entries describing the physical appearance and sexual specialities of about 120–190 prostitutes who worked in and around Covent Garden. Through their erotic prose, the list's entries review some of these women in lurid detail. While most compliment their subjects, some are critical of bad habits, and a few women are even treated as pariahs, perhaps having fallen out of favour with the list's authors, who are never revealed. (Full article...) -
Image 2Ace Books is a publisher of science fiction (SF) and fantasy books founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn. It began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns, and soon branched out into other genres, publishing its first science fiction title in 1953. This was successful, and science fiction titles outnumbered both mysteries and westerns within a few years. Other genres also made an appearance, including nonfiction, gothic novels, media tie-in novelizations, and romances. Ace became known for the tête-bêche binding format used for many of its early books, although it did not originate the format. Most of the early titles were published in this "Ace Double" format, and Ace continued to issue books in varied genres, bound tête-bêche, until 1973.
Ace, along with Ballantine Books, was one of the leading science fiction publishers for its first ten years of operation. The death of owner A. A. Wyn in 1967 set the stage for a later decline in the publisher's fortunes. Two leading editors, Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, left in 1971, and in 1972 Ace was sold to Grosset & Dunlap. Despite financial troubles, there were further successes, particularly with the third Ace Science Fiction Specials series, for which Carr came back as editor. Further mergers and acquisitions resulted in the company becoming absorbed by Berkley Books. Ace later became an imprint of Penguin Group (USA). (Full article...) -
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English alliterative verse. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs: the beheading game, and the exchange of winnings. Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel, it draws on Welsh, Irish, and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important example of a chivalric romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest which tests his prowess. It remains popular in modern English renderings from J. R. R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage, and others, as well as through film and stage adaptations.
The story describes how Sir Gawain, who was not yet a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who dares any man to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him, at which point, the Green Knight stands, picks up his head, and reminds Gawain of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain, Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving the lord and the lady of the castle at which he is a guest. The poem survives in one manuscript, Cotton Nero A.x., which also includes three religious narrative poems: Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience. All four are written in a North West Midlands dialect of Middle English, and are thought to be by the same author, dubbed the "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain Poet". (Full article...) -
Image 4Southern Cross is the sole wordless novel by Canadian artist Laurence Hyde (1914–1987). Published in 1951, its 118 wood-engraved images narrate the impact of atomic testing on Pacific islanders. Hyde made the book to express his anger at the US military's nuclear tests in the Bikini Atoll.
The wordless novel genre had flourished primarily during the 1920s and 1930s, but by the 1940s even the most prolific practitioners had abandoned it. Hyde was familiar with some such works by Lynd Ward, Otto Nückel, and the form's pioneer Frans Masereel. The high-contrast artwork of Southern Cross features dynamic curving lines uncommon in wood engraving and combines abstract imagery with realistic detail. It has gained appreciation in comics circles as a precursor to the Canadian graphic novel, though it had no direct influence. (Full article...) -
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X is an autobiography written by American minister Malcolm X, who collaborated with American journalist Alex Haley. It was released posthumously on October 29, 1965, nine months after his assassination. Haley coauthored the autobiography based on a series of in-depth interviews he conducted between 1963 and 1965. The Autobiography is a spiritual conversion narrative that outlines Malcolm X's philosophy of black pride, black nationalism, and pan-Africanism. After the leader was killed, Haley wrote the book's epilogue. He described their collaborative process and the events at the end of Malcolm X's life.
While Malcolm X and scholars contemporary to the book's publication regarded Haley as the book's ghostwriter, modern scholars tend to regard him as an essential collaborator who intentionally muted his authorial voice to create the effect of Malcolm X speaking directly to readers. Haley influenced some of Malcolm X's literary choices. For example, Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam during the period when he was working on the book with Haley. Rather than rewriting earlier chapters as a polemic against the Nation which Malcolm X had rejected, Haley persuaded him to favor a style of "suspense and drama". According to Manning Marable, "Haley was particularly worried about what he viewed as Malcolm X's anti-Semitism" and he rewrote material to eliminate it. (Full article...) -
Image 6Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution is a book written by Stephen Knight first published in 1976. It proposed a solution to five murders in Victorian London that were blamed on an unidentified serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".
Knight presented an elaborate conspiracy theory involving the British royal family, freemasonry and the painter Walter Sickert. He concluded that the victims were murdered to cover up a secret marriage between the second-in-line to the throne, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, and Annie Elizabeth Crook, a working class girl. There are many facts that contradict Knight's theory, and his main source, Joseph Gorman (also known as Joseph Sickert), later retracted the story and admitted to the press that it was a hoax. (Full article...) -
Image 7Stone commemorative marker at Literary Hall in Romney, West Virginia
The Romney Literary Society (also known as the Literary Society of Romney) existed from January 30, 1819, to February 15, 1886, in Romney, West Virginia. Established as the Polemic Society of Romney, it became the first organization of its kind in the present-day state of West Virginia, and one of the first in the United States. The society was founded by nine prominent men of Romney with the objectives of advancing literature and science, purchasing and maintaining a library, and improving educational opportunities.
The society debated an extensive range of scientific and social topics, often violating its own rules which banned religious and political subjects. Even though its membership was relatively small, its debates and activities were frequently discussed throughout the Potomac Highlands region, and the organization greatly influenced trends of thought in the Romney community and surrounding areas. (Full article...) -
Image 8Plate 21 depicting a male red-capped parrakeet
Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots is an 1832 book containing 42 hand-coloured lithographs by Edward Lear. He produced 175 copies for sale to subscribers as a part-publication, which were later bound as a book. Lear started painting parrots in 1830 when he was 18 years old, and to get material for his book he studied live birds at the London Zoo and in private collections. The latter included those of Edward Smith Stanley, later 13th Earl of Derby, who had a large menagerie at Knowsley Hall, and Benjamin Leadbeater, a taxidermist and trader in specimens. Lear drew onto lithographic plates for printing by Charles Joseph Hullmandel, who was known for the quality of his reproductions of fine art.
Although the book was a financial failure, Lear's paintings of parrots established his reputation as one of the best natural history artists of his time. It found him work with John Gould, Stanley and other leading contemporary naturalists, and the young Queen Victoria engaged him to help her with her painting technique. Parrots was a forerunner to the major volumes of bird paintings by Gould, and Lear's work has influenced children's illustrators such as Beatrix Potter and Maurice Sendak as well as bird specialists like William T. Cooper, Elizabeth Butterworth and Walton Ford. (Full article...) -
Image 9All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes, published in 1986, is the fifth book in African-American writer and poet Maya Angelou's seven-volume autobiography series. Set between 1962 and 1965, the book begins when Angelou is 33 years old, and recounts the years she lived in Accra, Ghana. The book, deriving its title from a Negro spiritual, begins where Angelou's previous memoir, The Heart of a Woman, ends — with the traumatic car accident involving her son Guy — and closes with Angelou returning to America.
As she had started to do in her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and continued throughout her series, Angelou upholds the long tradition of African-American autobiography. At the same time she makes a deliberate attempt to challenge the usual structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. Angelou had matured as a writer by the time she wrote Traveling Shoes, to the point that she was able to play with the form and structure of the work. As in her previous books, it consists of a series of anecdotes connected by theme. She depicts her struggle with being the mother of a grown son, and with her place in her new home. (Full article...) -
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The Negro Motorist Green Book (also, The Negro Travelers' Green Book, or Green-Book) was a guidebook for African American roadtrippers. It was founded by Victor Hugo Green, an African American, New York City postal worker who published it annually from 1936 to 1966. This was during the era of Jim Crow laws, when open and often legally prescribed discrimination against African Americans especially and other non-whites was widespread. While pervasive racial discrimination and poverty limited black car ownership, the emerging African American middle class bought automobiles as soon as they could, but faced a variety of dangers and inconveniences along the road, from refusal of food and lodging to arbitrary arrest. In response, Green wrote his guide to services and places relatively friendly to African Americans. Eventually, he also founded a travel agency.
Many black Americans took to driving, in part to avoid segregation on public transportation. As the writer George Schuyler put it in 1930, "all Negroes who can do so purchase an automobile as soon as possible in order to be free of discomfort, discrimination, segregation and insult". Black Americans employed as athletes, entertainers, and salesmen also traveled frequently for work purposes using automobiles that they owned personally. (Full article...) -
Image 11A Journey is a memoir by Tony Blair of his tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Published in the UK on 1 September 2010, it covers events from when he became leader of the Labour Party in 1994 and transformed it into "New Labour", holding power for a party record three successive terms, to his resignation and replacement as prime minister by his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. Blair donated his £4.6-million advance, and all subsequent royalties, to the British Armed Forces charity the Royal British Legion. It became the fastest-selling autobiography of all time at the bookstore chain Waterstones. Promotional events were marked by anti-war protests.
Two of the book's major topics are the strains in Blair's relationship with Brown after Blair allegedly reneged on the pair's 1994 agreement to step down as Prime Minister much earlier, and his controversial decision to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Blair discusses Labour's future following the 2010 general election, his relations with the Royal Family, and how he came to respect President of the United States George W. Bush. Reviews were mixed; some criticised Blair's writing style, but others called it candid. (Full article...) -
Image 12Getting It: The Psychology of est, a non-fiction book by American clinical psychologist Sheridan Fenwick first published in 1976, analyzes Werner Erhard's Erhard Seminars Training or est. Fenwick based the book on her own experience of attending a four-day session of the est training, an intensive 60-hour personal-development course in the self-help genre. Large groups of up to 250 people took the est training at one time.
In the first section of Fenwick's book, she recounts the est training process and the methods used during the course. Fenwick details the rules or "agreements" laid out by the trainers to the attendees, which include not talking to others or leaving the session to go to the bathroom unless during an announced break period. The second section is analytic: Fenwick analyzes the methods used by the est trainers, evaluates the course's potential effects, and discusses Erhard's background. Fenwick concludes that the program's long-term effects are unknown, the est training may not be appropriate for certain groups of people, and that a large proportion of participants report perceived positive effects. (Full article...) -
Image 13The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South is a book written by American historian John W. Blassingame. Published in 1972, it is one of the first historical studies of slavery in the United States to be presented from the perspective of the enslaved. The Slave Community contradicted those historians who had interpreted history to suggest that African-American slaves were docile and submissive "Sambos" who enjoyed the benefits of a paternalistic master–slave relationship on southern plantations. Using psychology, Blassingame analyzes fugitive slave narratives published in the 19th century to conclude that an independent culture developed among the enslaved and that there were a variety of personality types exhibited by slaves.
Although the importance of The Slave Community was recognized by scholars of American slavery, Blassingame's conclusions, methodology, and sources were heavily criticized. Historians criticized the use of slave narratives that were seen as unreliable and biased. They questioned Blassingame's decision to exclude the more than 2,000 interviews with former slaves conducted by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s. Historians argued that Blassingame's use of psychological theory proved unhelpful in his interpretation. Blassingame defended his conclusions at a 1976 meeting of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History and in 1979 published a revised and enlarged edition of The Slave Community. Despite criticisms, The Slave Community is a foundational text in the study of the life and culture of slaves in the Antebellum South. (Full article...) -
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Epiphanius of Salamis' book the Panarion is the main source of information regarding the Gospel of the Ebionites.
The Gospel of the Ebionites is the conventional name given by scholars to an apocryphal gospel extant only as seven brief quotations in a heresiology known as the Panarion, by Epiphanius of Salamis; he misidentified it as the "Hebrew" gospel, believing it to be a truncated and modified version of the Gospel of Matthew. The quotations were embedded in a polemic to point out inconsistencies in the beliefs and practices of a Jewish Christian sect known as the Ebionites relative to Nicene orthodoxy.
The surviving fragments derive from a gospel harmony of the Synoptic Gospels, composed in Greek with various expansions and abridgments reflecting the theology of the writer. Distinctive features include the absence of the virgin birth and of the genealogy of Jesus; an Adoptionist Christology, in which Jesus is chosen to be God's Son at the time of his Baptism; the abolition of the Jewish sacrifices by Jesus; and an advocacy of vegetarianism. (Full article...) -
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Mom & Me & Mom (2013) is the seventh and final book in author Maya Angelou's series of autobiographies. The book was published shortly before Mother's Day and Angelou's 85th birthday. It focuses, for the first time in her books, on Angelou's relationship with her mother, Vivian Baxter. The book explains Baxter's behavior, especially Baxter's abandonment of Angelou and Angelou's older brother when they were young children, and fills in "what are possibly the final blanks in Angelou's eventful life". The book also chronicles Angelou's reunion and reconciliation with Baxter.
Mom & Me & Mom is an overview of Angelou's life and revisits many of the same anecdotes she relates in her previous books. The first section, entitled "Mom & Me", centers on Angelou's early years, before the age of 17, and her transition from resentment and distrust of her mother to acceptance, support, and love towards her. After Baxter helps her through the birth of her son, Angelou goes from calling Baxter "Lady" to "Mom". In the book's second section, entitled "Me & Mom", Angelou chronicles the unconditional love, support, and assistance they gave to each other, as Baxter helps her through single motherhood, a failed marriage, and career ups and downs. As she had begun to do in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and continued throughout her series, Angelou upheld the long traditions of African-American autobiography. At the same time she made a deliberate attempt to challenge the usual structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. She had become recognized and highly respected as a spokesperson for Blacks and women. Angelou was, as scholar Joanne Braxton has stated, "without a doubt, ... America's most visible black woman autobiographer". She had also become "a major autobiographical voice of the time". (Full article...)
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Credit: Leonardo da Vinci
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The Zuo Zhuan (Chinese: 左傳; Wade–Giles: Tso chuan; [tswò ʈʂwân]), often translated The Zuo Tradition or The Commentary of Zuo, is an ancient Chinese narrative history that is traditionally regarded as a commentary on the ancient Chinese chronicle Spring and Autumn Annals. It comprises 30 chapters covering a period from 722 to 468 BC, and focuses mainly on political, diplomatic, and military affairs from that era.
For many centuries, the Zuo Zhuan was the primary text through which educated Chinese learned their ancient history. The Zuo Zhuan does not simply explain the wording of the Spring and Autumn Annals, but rather expounds upon its historical background with rich and lively accounts of Spring and Autumn period (771–476 BC) history and culture. The Zuo Zhuan is the source of more Chinese sayings and idioms than any other classical work, and its concise, flowing style came to be held as a paragon of elegant Classical Chinese. Its tendency toward third-person narration and portraying characters through direct speech and action became hallmarks of Chinese narrative in general, and its style was imitated by historians, storytellers, and ancient style prose masters for over 2000 years of subsequent Chinese history. (Full article...) -
Image 2The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World is a treatise on modern warfare written by General Sir Rupert Smith and published in 2005. Smith is a retired general who spent 40 years in the British Army; he commanded the 1st Armoured Division in the First Gulf War and served as General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland at the end of the Troubles. He was motivated to write the book by his experiences in the Balkans. He commanded the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia from 1995 to 1996, during which time the Srebrenica massacre occurred and the capital, Sarajevo, was under siege by Serb forces. Smith was instrumental in the lifting of the siege by arranging for NATO air strikes and an artillery barrage. This enabled a ground assault by Bosnian and Croatian forces that ended the siege and led to the Dayton Agreement. Smith's second involvement with the Balkans was in 1999 during the Kosovo War, when he was serving as NATO's Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, overseeing air strikes against Serb targets.
Smith's thesis, and the central theme of The Utility of Force, is that the world entered a new paradigm of conflict at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, which he calls "war amongst the people", and that Western, industrialised armies are ill-suited to the new style of warfare. The defining characteristics of "war amongst the people" are that conflicts tend to be timeless, more political in nature, and fought between parties that are part of, and in amongst, the civilian population rather than between uniformed armies on a battlefield. To prove his theory, Smith provides a detailed history starting with Napoleon, who invented what Smith calls "industrial warfare"—the paradigm in which the entire resources of the nation were mustered and which culminated in the two world wars. In the second half of the book, Smith states that the advent of nuclear weapons rendered industrial warfare obsolete, but that Western governments and generals refused to acknowledge the new paradigm, which led to several significant defeats in the second half of the 20th century. He provides six themes which characterise modern conflicts and proceeds to analyse each in detail, before dedicating his final chapter to his reflections on his command in Bosnia. He concedes that he did not foresee the Srebrenica massacre, but criticises UNPROFOR, believing that it was not in a position to act even had the massacre been foreseen and that it had no strategy for effectively intervening in the war. In his conclusion, Smith argues that military force is only part of the solution in modern conflicts, and that it must be combined with political initiatives which together will subdue but not necessarily end the conflict. (Full article...) -
Image 3White Dog, released in France as Chien Blanc, is a non-fiction autobiographical novel written by Romain Gary. Originally published as a short story in Life in 1970 (9 October), the full novel was published in 1970 in French in France by Éditions Gallimard. Gary's English version of the novel was published in North America in the same year by New American Library. The novel provides a fictionalized account of Gary and his wife's experiences in the 1960s with a stray Alabama police dog trained to attack black people on sight, and their attempts to have the dog reprogrammed.
Gary uses the novel as a vehicle to denounce both racism and the activists supporting African-American rights, including his own ex-wife Jean Seberg and Marlon Brando. He also examines whether human responses to situations, including racism, are learned social behavior and whether they can be unlearned. In 1981, it was adapted into the controversial film of the same name, in which director Samuel Fuller made various changes to the novel's story to focus more on the dog and present a more pessimistic ending than the original novel. The film's American release after negative press from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) led to concerns of boycotts. Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette released a more faithful adaptation of the book in 2022. (Full article...) -
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Either/Or (Danish: Enten – Eller) is the first published work of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. It appeared in two volumes in 1843 under the pseudonymous editorship of Victor Eremita (Latin for "victorious hermit"). It outlines a theory of human existence, marked by the distinction between an essentially hedonistic, aesthetic mode of life and the ethical life, which is predicated upon commitment.
Either/Or portrays two life views. Each life view is written and represented by a fictional author, with the prose reflecting and depending on the life view. The aesthetic life view is written in short essay form, with poetic imagery and allusions, discussing aesthetic topics such as music, seduction, drama, and beauty. The ethical life view is written as two long letters, with a more argumentative and restrained prose, discussing moral responsibility, critical reflection, and marriage. The views are expressed as lived experiences embodied by the "authors". The book's central concern is Aristotle's primal question, "How should we live?" His motto comes from Plutarch, "The deceived is wiser than one not deceived." (Full article...) -
Image 5Ways That Are Dark: The Truth About China is a 1933 non-fiction book by Ralph Townsend which presents Townsend's observations on the state of then-contemporary China. The book is considered an anti-Chinese polemic by scholars.
A harsh critique of Chinese society and culture, Ways That Are Dark was written at a time when China was in the grip of considerable civil strife. Townsend claimed that the source of China's problems lay in fundamental defects in the ethnic characteristics of the Chinese people. Although the book was a bestseller in the United States, it met with highly polarized reactions from its supporters and detractors. Though praised by some periodicals, it was denounced by missionaries and sinologists, including Owen Lattimore who condemned it as "a general indictment of a whole race". It was banned by the government of China. (Full article...) -
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The Ornithological Dictionary; or Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds was written by the English naturalist and army officer George Montagu, and first published by J. White of Fleet Street, London in 1802.
It was one of the texts, along with Thomas Bewick's contemporaneous A History of British Birds (2 volumes, 1797 and 1804) that made ornithology popular in Britain, and, with the 1676 Ornithologia libri tres of Francis Willughby and John Ray, helped to make it the object of serious study. The book includes a description of the cirl bunting, discovered by Montagu in 1800 near his home in Kingsbridge, Devon. (Full article...) -
Image 7Yoga Makaranda (Sanskrit: योग मकरन्द), meaning "Essence of Yoga", is a 1934 book on hatha yoga by the influential pioneer of yoga as exercise, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. Most of the text is a description of 42 asanas accompanied by 95 photographs of Krishnamacharya and his students executing the poses. There is a brief account of practices other than asanas, which form just one of the eight limbs of classical yoga, that Krishnamacharya "did not instruct his students to practice".
The yoga scholar Mark Singleton notes that the book is almost legendary among Pattabhi Jois's students, though "very few have actually seen it". Singleton notes, too, that the book was "experimental". The yoga scholar Norman Sjoman criticises the book's "padded academic bibliography" full of irrelevant works, and the perfunctory and ill-informed coverage of yoga practices other than asanas, while another yoga scholar, Elliott Goldberg, comments that the photographs serve to demystify the asanas of their spiritual content, and that Krishnamacharya was falsely claiming an ancient origin for his dynamic vinyasa system of yoga. (Full article...) -
Image 8Mr. Peabody's Apples is a picture book written by American entertainer Madonna, released on November 10, 2003, by Callaway Arts & Entertainment. The book contains a moral tale, inspired by a 300-year-old story by Rabbi Baal Shem Tov, that Madonna had heard from her Kabbalah teacher. Its main protagonist, Mr. Peabody, is subjected to rumors spread by a young boy and teaches him a lesson. Mr. Peabody's Apples is illustrated by Loren Long who took inspiration from American regionalist painters, and modeled the characters after real-life people.
Mr. Peabody's Apples was released in over 150 countries and 36 languages worldwide. It was the second children's book authored by Madonna, following The English Roses. She partnered with Audible stores and Apple Music for promotion, and also appeared on US talk shows. Critics gave mostly negative reviews of the book, criticizing the storytelling and absence of joy in it. The book debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list. (Full article...) -
Image 9White Plume Mountain is an adventure module for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, written by Lawrence Schick and published by TSR in 1979. The 16-page adventure bears the code "S2" ("S" for "special"). The adventure is a dungeon crawl where the players' characters are hired to retrieve three "notorious" magical weapons, each possessing its own intelligence. The adventure contains art by Erol Otus, and a cover by Jeff Dee. A sequel, Return to White Plume Mountain, was published in 1999, and an updated version conforming to v3.5 rules was released online in 2005. The original was again updated for the 5th edition in 2017 as the fourth part of Tales from the Yawning Portal.
White Plume Mountain was well received by critics. It was ranked the 9th greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004. One judge, commenting on the ingenuity required to complete the adventure, described it as "the puzzle dungeon to end all puzzle dungeons." A review for British magazine White Dwarf gave it an overall rating of 8/10, noting that the adventure focuses on problem solving. It is also the favorite adventure of Wired magazine's Ken Denmead, who described it as the "amusement park of dungeons". Other adventures in the S series include Tomb of Horrors, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. (Full article...) -
Image 10Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now, published in 1993, is African-American writer and poet Maya Angelou's first book of essays. It was published shortly after she recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at President Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration. Journey consists of a series of short essays, often autobiographical, along with two poems, and has been called one of Angelou's "wisdom books". It is titled after a lyric in the African American spiritual, "On My Journey Now." At the time of its publication, Angelou was already well respected and popular as a writer and poet. Like her previous works, Journey received generally positive reviews. (Full article...)
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Image 11The Making of the English Landscape is a 1954 book by the English local historian William George Hoskins. The book is also the introductory volume in a series of the same name which deals with the English Landscape county by county.
It is illustrated with 82 monochrome plates, mostly photographs by Hoskins himself, and 17 maps or plans. It has appeared in at least 35 editions and reprints in English and other languages. (Full article...) -
Image 12The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better is a pamphlet by Tyler Cowen published in 2011. It argues that the American economy has reached a historical technological plateau and the factors that drove economic growth for most of America's history are no longer present. These figurative "low-hanging fruit" include the cultivation of much free, previously unused land, technological breakthroughs in transport, refrigeration, electricity, mass communications, sanitation, and the growth of education. Cowen, a professor of economics at George Mason University, theorizes that these factors have contributed to stagnation in the median American wage since 1973.
The concept of a "Great Stagnation" has been contrasted with the idea of the "Great Divergence", a set of explanations that blame rising income inequality and globalization for the economic stall. Related debates have examined whether the internet's effect has yet been fully realized in production, if its users enjoy a significant consumer surplus, and how it might be further integrated into the economy. The final set of questions concerns appropriate policy responses to the problem. (Full article...) -
Image 13The Post-American World is a non-fiction book by American journalist Fareed Zakaria. It was published in hardcover and audiobook formats in early May 2008 and became available in paperback in early May 2009; the Updated and Expanded Release 2.0 followed in 2011. In the book, Zakaria argues that, thanks to the actions of the United States in spreading liberal democracy across the world, other countries are now competing with the US in terms of economic, industrial, and cultural power. While the US continues to dominate in terms of political-military power, other countries such as China and India are becoming global players in many fields.
The book peaked at #2 on The New York Times non-fiction hardcover best-seller list and at #47 on the USA Today Top 150 Best-Selling Books list. Reviewers commented that Zakaria's writing was intelligent and sharp, yet accessible to general audiences. A few reviewers also wrote that the book was similar to an extended essay with journalistic style writing. (Full article...) -
Image 14Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth is a non-fiction book written by Margaret Atwood, about the nature of debt, for the 2008 Massey Lectures. Each of the book's five chapters was delivered as a one-hour lecture in a different Canadian city, beginning in St. John's, Newfoundland, on October 12 and ending in Toronto on November 1. The lectures were broadcast on CBC Radio One's Ideas November 10–14. The book was published by House of Anansi Press, both in paperback and in a limited edition hardcover.
The lectures and book had been originally scheduled for 2009, but were moved up to 2008 to avoid conflicting with Atwood's forthcoming novel after the latter book was delayed by its publisher. The content examines borrowing and lending from financial, psychological, theological, literary, and ecological points of view. Its release coincided with extensive media coverage of the recent financial crisis which led numerous critics to comment on the book's timeliness. In the Canadian market, the book peaked at #1 on The Globe and Mail bestseller list on October 25 and out-sold all previous Massey Lecture books. Critics found the book well-researched, thought-provoking, and humorous. Various reviewers found the discussions on the non-monetary aspects of debt to be the better parts of the book, while some critics identified the sections on ecological debt as the worst parts of the book. (Full article...) -
Image 15Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids is a non-fiction book by Maia Szalavitz analyzing the controversy surrounding the troubled teen industry. The book was published February 16, 2006, by Riverhead Books. Szalavitz focuses on four programs: Straight, Incorporated, a copy of the Straight Inc. program called KIDS, North Star wilderness boot camp, and the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools. She discusses the background, history and methodology of the troubled-teen industry, including techniques drawn from attack therapy and Synanon. She uses first-person accounts and court testimony in her research, and states that no evidence exists proving that these programs are effective. The book also includes advice for parents and an appendix with additional resources on how to get responsible help for teenagers.
The book received positive reviews in academic journals, literary journals, and in the media. Psychologist Steve K. D. Eichel reviewed the book for Cultic Studies Review and called it a "must read", psychologist and psychiatrist Robert John McAllister described it as "an excellent and informative book on the subject of the 'troubled-teen industry' " in his book Emotions: Mystery Or Madness, and a review in Psychology Today described Szalavitz's work as "a meticulously reported and thoughtful investigation". The book also received positive reviews in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Newsday. The book later led to an investigation into the troubled-teen industry by the United States House Committee on Education and Labor of the United States House of Representatives, and Representative George Miller held hearings on the matter in October 2007 and April 2008. (Full article...)
Selected quote
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Friedrich_Kellner_1934-b.jpg/90px-Friedrich_Kellner_1934-b.jpg)
“ | Gutenberg, your printing press has been violated by this evil book, Mein Kampf! | ” |
— Friedrich Kellner |
Did you know
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Charles_Dickens-A_Christmas_Carol-Title_page-First_edition_1843.jpg/100px-Charles_Dickens-A_Christmas_Carol-Title_page-First_edition_1843.jpg)
- ...that A Christmas Carol sold over six thousand copies in one week?(Pictured)
- ...that the Book of Revelation 21:21 describes the city of New Jerusalem as having streets "made of pure gold, clear as crystal" ?
- ...that the early nineteenth century, books were hand-bound using heavy materials such as wood, leather, gold, silver and jewels?
General images
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Image 2Hardbound book with half leather binding (spine and corners) and marbled boards (from Bookbinding)
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Image 4European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books)
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Image 5Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books)
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Image 6Page spread with J. A. van de Graaf's construction of classical text area (print space) and margin proportions (from Book design)
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Image 7Traditionally sewn book opened flat (from Bookbinding)
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Image 8Page from the Blue Quran manuscript, ca. 9th or 10th century CE (from History of books)
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Image 9Example of blind tooling a book binding with exquisite detail (from Bookbinding)
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Image 10A traditional bookbinder at work (from Bookbinding)
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Image 11A Chinese bamboo book (from History of books)
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Image 13Page from a Jain manuscript depicting the birth of Mahavira, c. 1400 (from History of books)
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Image 14Decorative binding with figurehead of the 12th century manuscript Liber Landavensis (from Bookbinding)
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Image 15Sammelband of three alchemical treatises, bound in Strasbourg by Samuel Emmel c. 1568, showing metal clasps and leather covering of boards (from Bookbinding)
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Image 16Design by Hans Holbein the Younger for a metalwork book cover (or treasure binding) (from Book design)
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Image 17European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books)
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Image 18A Sumerian clay tablet, currently housed in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, inscribed with the text of the poem Inanna and Ebih by the priestess Enheduanna, the first author whose name is known
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Image 19Scheme of common book design(from Bookbinding)
- Belly band
- Flap
- Endpaper
- Book cover
- Head
- Fore edge
- Tail
- Right page, recto
- Left page, verso
- Gutter
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Image 20The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) (from History of books)
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Image 21Early medieval bookcase containing about ten codices depicted in the Codex Amiatinus (c. 700) (from Bookbinding)
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Image 22Book conservators at the State Library of New South Wales, 1943 (from Bookbinding)
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Image 2412-metre-high (40 ft) stack of books sculpture at the Berlin Walk of Ideas, commemorating the invention of modern book printing (from History of books)
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Image 25Hardbound book spine stitching (from Bookbinding)
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Image 26European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books)
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Image 27Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books)
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Image 28The spine of the book is an important aspect in book design, especially in the cover design. When the books are stacked up or stored in a shelf, the details on the spine is the only visible surface that contains the information about the book. In a book store, it is often the details on the spine that attract the attention first. (from Book design)
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Image 29Three books with different titling orientations:
(left) ascending
(middle) descending
(right) upright (from Bookbinding) -
Image 30Cloth book cover with attached paper panel, mimicking half leather binding (from Bookbinding)
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Image 32Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books)
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Image 35The scene in Botticelli's Madonna of the Book (1480) reflects the presence of books in the houses of richer people in his time. (from History of books)
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Image 36A 15th-century Incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books)
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Image 37Jikji, Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Seon Masters, the earliest known book printed with movable metal type, 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. (from History of books)
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Image 38Rebacking saving original spine, showing one volume finished and one untouched (from Bookbinding)
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Image 39An author portrait of Jean Miélot writing his compilation of the Miracles of Our Lady, one of his many popular works. (from History of books)
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Image 40Modern book spine designs (from Bookbinding)
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Image 41Bookbinder's type holder (from Bookbinding)
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Web resources
- Bookbinding and the Conservation of books, A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology, 1982 by Matt T. Roberts and Don Etherington
- IOBA glossary of book terms
- Project Gutenberg - Free e-Books
- Words at Large: The best in books from CBC.ca
- please more!
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