Book - Wikipedia. A book is a set of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of ink, paper, parchment, or other materials, fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is a leaf, and each side of a leaf is a page. A set of text- filled or illustrated pages produced in electronic format is known as an electronic book, or e- book. Books may also refer to works of literature, or a main division of such a work. In library and information science, a book is called a monograph, to distinguish it from serial periodicals such as magazines, journals, or newspapers. The body of all written works including books is literature.
In novels and sometimes other types of books (for example, biographies), a book may be divided into several large sections, also called books (Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, and so on). An avid reader of books is a bibliophile or colloquially, bookworm. A shop where books are bought and sold is a bookshop or bookstore. Books can also be borrowed from libraries. Google has estimated that as of 2.
In Russian and in Serbian and Macedonian, the word . It is thus conjectured that the earliest Indo- European writings may have been carved on beech wood. The study of such inscriptions forms a major part of history. The study of inscriptions is known as epigraphy.
Alphabetic writing emerged in Egypt. The Ancient Egyptians would often write on papyrus, a plant grown along the Nile River. At first the words were not separated from each other (scriptura continua) and there was no punctuation. Texts were written from right to left, left to right, or even so that alternate lines read in opposite directions. The technical term for that last type of writing is 'boustrophedon', which means literally 'ox- turning' for the way a farmer drives an ox to plough his fields. Tablet. A tablet might be defined as a physically robust writing medium, suitable for casual transport and writing. See also stylus. Clay tablets were flattened and mostly dry pieces of clay that could be easily carried, and impressed with a (possibly dampened) stylus.
They were used as a writing medium, especially for writing in cuneiform, throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age. Wax tablets were pieces of wood covered in a thick enough coating of wax to record the impressions of a stylus. They were the normal writing material in schools, in accounting, and for taking notes. They had the advantage of being reusable: the wax could be melted, and reformed into a blank.
The custom of binding several wax tablets together (Roman pugillares) is a possible precursor for modern books (i. Tree bark such as lime and other materials were also used. The Greek word for papyrus as writing material (biblion) and book (biblos) come from the Phoenician port town Byblos, through which papyrus was exported to Greece. Tomus was used by the Latins with exactly the same meaning as volumen (see also below the explanation by Isidore of Seville). Whether made from papyrus, parchment, or paper, scrolls were the dominant form of book in the Hellenistic, Roman, Chinese, Hebrew, and Macedonian cultures. The more modern codex book format form took over the Roman world by late antiquity, but the scroll format persisted much longer in Asia.
Codex. A Chinese bamboo book meets the modern definition of Codex. Isidore of Seville (died 6. Etymologiae (VI. 1.
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It is called codex by way of metaphor from the trunks (codex) of trees or vines, as if it were a wooden stock, because it contains in itself a multitude of books, as it were of branches. The first written mention of the codex as a form of book is from Martial, in his Apophoreta CLXXXIV at the end of the first century, where he praises its compactness. However, the codex never gained much popularity in the pagan Hellenistic world, and only within the Christian community did it gain widespread use. A book is much easier to read, to find a page that you want, and to flip through. A scroll is more awkward to use. The Christian authors may also have wanted to distinguish their writings from the pagan and Judaic texts written on scrolls.
In addition, some metal books were made, that required smaller pages of metal, instead of an impossibly long, unbending scroll of metal. A book can also be easily stored in more compact places, or side by side in a tight library or shelf space. Manuscripts. The fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century A. D. Papyrus became difficult to obtain due to lack of contact with Egypt, and parchment, which had been used for centuries, became the main writing material. Monasteries carried on the Latin writing tradition in the Western Roman Empire. Cassiodorus, in the monastery of Vivarium (established around 5.
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Benedict of Nursia, in his Rule of Saint Benedict (completed around the middle of the 6th century) later also promoted reading. XLVIII), which set aside certain times for reading, greatly influenced the monastic culture of the Middle Ages and is one of the reasons why the clergy were the predominant readers of books. The tradition and style of the Roman Empire still dominated, but slowly the peculiar medieval book culture emerged. Before the invention and adoption of the printing press, almost all books were copied by hand, which made books expensive and comparatively rare.
Smaller monasteries usually had only a few dozen books, medium- sized perhaps a few hundred. By the 9th century, larger collections held around 5. Middle Ages, the papal library in Avignon and Paris library of the Sorbonne held only around 2,0. Artificial light was forbidden for fear it may damage the manuscripts.
There were five types of scribes: Calligraphers, who dealt in fine book production. Copyists, who dealt with basic production and correspondence. Correctors, who collated and compared a finished book with the manuscript from which it had been produced. Illuminators, who painted illustrations. Rubricators, who painted in the red letters. The bookmaking process was long and laborious.
The parchment had to be prepared, then the unbound pages were planned and ruled with a blunt tool or lead, after which the text was written by the scribe, who usually left blank areas for illustration and rubrication. Finally, the book was bound by the bookbinder.
This gave writing a brownish black color, but black or brown were not the only colors used. There are texts written in red or even gold, and different colors were used for illumination. For very luxurious manuscripts the whole parchment was colored purple, and the text was written on it with gold or silver (for example, Codex Argenteus). This facilitated reading, as these monks tended to be less familiar with Latin. However, the use of spaces between words did not become commonplace before the 1.
It has been argued that the use of spacing between words shows the transition from semi- vocalized reading into silent reading. The book covers were made of wood and covered with leather. Because dried parchment tends to assume the form it had before processing, the books were fitted with clasps or straps. During the later Middle Ages, when public libraries appeared, up to the 1. These chained books are called libri catenati. At first, books were copied mostly in monasteries, one at a time. With the rise of universities in the 1.
Manuscript culture of the time led to an increase in the demand for books, and a new system for copying books appeared. The books were divided into unbound leaves (pecia), which were lent out to different copyists, so the speed of book production was considerably increased.
The system was maintained by secular stationers guilds, which produced both religious and non- religious material. According to Jewish tradition, the Torah scroll placed in a synagogue must be written by hand on parchment and a printed book would not do, though the congregation may use printed prayer books and printed copies of the Scriptures are used for study outside the synagogue.
A number of cities in the medieval Islamic world had book production centers and book markets. Baghdad had over a hundred booksellers. In the check reading method, only . This method originated in China, in the Han dynasty (before 2. AD), as a method of printing on textiles and later paper, and was widely used throughout East Asia.
The oldest dated book printed by this method is The Diamond Sutra (8. AD). The method (called Woodcut when used in art) arrived in Europe in the early 1. Books (known as block- books), as well as playing- cards and religious pictures, began to be produced by this method. Creating an entire book was a painstaking process, requiring a hand- carved block for each page; and the wood blocks tended to crack, if stored for long.
The monks or people who wrote them were paid highly. Movable type and incunabula. A 1. 5th- century Incunable.
Notice the blind- tooled cover, corner bosses and clasps. The Chinese inventor Bi Sheng made movable type of earthenware circa 1. Around 1. 45. 0, in what is commonly regarded as an independent invention, Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type in Europe, along with innovations in casting the type based on a matrix and hand mould.
This invention gradually made books less expensive to produce, and more widely available. Early printed books, single sheets and images which were created before 1. Europe are known as incunables or incunabula. These machines could print 1,1. They could set more than 6,0. The centuries after the 1. See also intellectual property, public domain, copyright.
In mid- 2. 0th century, European book production had risen to over 2. Book manufacture in modern times. The 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 stores, it is the details on the spine that attract buyers' attention first.
The methods used for the printing and binding of books continued fundamentally unchanged from the 1.