Portal:Books
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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, the scroll and the tablet. 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 can be borrowed from libraries. The reception of books has led to a number of social consequences, including censorship.
A physical book may not contain a written work: 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, as in the case of 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 have difficulty accessing print media due to disabilities 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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- Image 1Ravenloft is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. The American game publishing company TSR, Inc. released it as a standalone adventure booklet in 1983 for use with the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game. It was written by Tracy and Laura Hickman, and includes art by Clyde Caldwell with maps by David Sutherland III. The plot of Ravenloft focuses on the villain Strahd von Zarovich, a vampire who pines for his lost love. Various story elements, including Strahd's motivation and the locations of magical weapons, are randomly determined by drawing cards. The player characters attempt to defeat Strahd and, if successful, the adventure ends.
The Hickmans began work on Ravenloft in the late 1970s, intent on creating a frightening portrait of a vampire in a setting that combined Gothic horror with the D&D game system. They play-tested the adventure with a group of players each Halloween for five years before it was published. Strahd has since appeared in a number of D&D accessories and novels. The module has inspired numerous revisions and adaptations, including a campaign setting of the same name and a sequel. In 1999, on the 25th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, two commemorative versions of Ravenloft were released. (Full article...) - Image 2
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 3
Title page from History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817), Thomas Hookham, Jr. and Charles and James Ollier, London.
History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; with Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni is a travel narrative by the English Romantic authors Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Published anonymously in 1817, it describes two trips taken by Mary, Percy, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont: one across Europe in 1814, and one to Lake Geneva in 1816. Divided into three sections, the text consists of a journal, four letters, and Percy Shelley's poem "Mont Blanc". Apart from the poem, preface, and two letters, the text was primarily written and organised by Mary Shelley. In 1840 she revised the journal and the letters, republishing them in a collection of Percy Shelley's writings.
Part of the new genre of the Romantic travel narrative, History of a Six Weeks' Tour exudes spontaneity and enthusiasm; the authors demonstrate their desire to develop a sense of taste and distinguish themselves from those around them. The romantic elements of the work would have hinted at the text's radical politics to nineteenth-century readers. However, the text's frank discussion of politics, including positive references to the French Revolution and praise of Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, was unusual for a travel narrative at the time, particularly one authored primarily by a woman. (Full article...) - Image 4Trinity College, Cambridge MS O.2.1
The Liber Eliensis is a 12th-century English chronicle and history, written in Latin. Composed in three books, it was written at Ely Abbey on the island of Ely in the fenlands of eastern Cambridgeshire. Ely Abbey became the cathedral of a newly formed bishopric in 1109. Traditionally the author of the anonymous work has been given as Richard or Thomas, two monks at Ely, one of whom, Richard, has been identified with an official of the monastery, but some historians hold that neither Richard nor Thomas was the author.
The Liber covers the period from the founding of the abbey in 673 until the middle of the 12th century, building on earlier historical works. It incorporates documents and stories of saints' lives. The work typifies a type of local history produced during the latter part of the 12th century. Similar books were written at other English monasteries. The longest of the contemporary local histories, the Liber chronicles the devastation that the Anarchy caused during the reign of King Stephen. It also documents the career of Nigel, the Bishop of Ely from 1133 to 1169, and his disputes with King Stephen. Other themes include the miracles worked by the monastery's patron saint, Æthelthryth, and gifts of land to Ely. (Full article...) - Image 5Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a 1974 nonfiction narrative book by American author Annie Dillard. Told from a first-person point of view, the book details Dillard's explorations near her home, and various contemplations on nature and life. The title refers to Tinker Creek, which is outside Roanoke in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. Dillard began Pilgrim in the spring of 1973, using her personal journals as inspiration. Separated into four sections that signify each of the seasons, the narrative takes place over the period of one year.
The book records the narrator's thoughts on solitude, writing, and religion, as well as scientific observations on the flora and fauna she encounters. It touches on themes of faith, nature, and awareness, and is also noted for its study of theodicy and the cruelty of the natural world. The author has described it as a "book of theology", and she rejects the label of nature writer. Dillard considers the story a "single sustained nonfiction narrative", although several chapters have been anthologized separately in magazines and other publications. The book is analogous in design and genre to Henry David Thoreau's Walden (1854), the subject of Dillard's master's thesis at Hollins College. Critics often compare Dillard to authors from the Transcendentalist movement; Edward Abbey in particular deemed her Thoreau's "true heir". (Full article...) - Image 6All 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...) - Image 7The General in His Labyrinth (original Spanish title: El general en su laberinto) is a 1989 dictator novel by Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. It is a fictionalized account of the last seven months of Simón Bolívar, liberator and leader of Gran Colombia. The book traces Bolívar's final journey from Bogotá to the Caribbean coastline of Colombia in his attempt to leave South America for exile in Europe. Breaking with the traditional heroic portrayal of Bolívar El Libertador, García Márquez depicts a pathetic protagonist, a prematurely aged man who is physically ill and mentally exhausted. The story explores the labyrinth of Bolívar's life through the narrative of his memories, in which "despair, sickness, and death inevitably win out over love, health, and life".
Following the success of One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), García Márquez decided to write about the "Great Liberator" after reading an unfinished novel by his friend Álvaro Mutis. He borrowed the setting—Bolívar's voyage down the Magdalena River in 1830—from Mutis. García Márquez spent two years researching the subject, encompassing the extensive memoirs of Bolívar's Irish aide-de-camp, Daniel Florencio O'Leary, as well as numerous other historical documents and consultations with academics. (Full article...) - Image 8
Hemming's Cartulary is a manuscript cartulary, or collection of charters and other land records, collected by a monk named Hemming around the time of the Norman Conquest of England. The manuscript comprises two separate cartularies that were made at different times and later bound together; it is in the British Library as MS Cotton Tiberius A xiii. The first was composed at the end of the 10th or beginning of the 11th century. The second section was compiled by Hemming and was written around the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th century. The first section, traditionally titled the Liber Wigorniensis, is a collection of Anglo-Saxon charters and other land records, most of which are organized geographically. The second section, Hemming's Cartulary proper, combines charters and other land records with a narrative of deprivation of property owned by the church of Worcester.
The two works are bound together in one surviving manuscript, the earliest surviving cartulary from medieval England. A major theme is the losses suffered by Worcester at the hands of royal officials and local landowners. Included amongst the despoilers are kings such as Cnut and William the Conqueror, and nobles such as Eadric Streona and Urse d'Abetot. Also included are accounts of lawsuits waged by the Worcester monks in an effort to regain their lost lands. The two sections of the cartulary were first printed in 1723. The original manuscript was slightly damaged by fire in 1733, and required rebinding. (Full article...) - Image 9
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...) - Image 10Gods' Man is a wordless novel by American artist Lynd Ward (1905–1985) published in 1929. In 139 captionless woodblock prints, it tells the Faustian story of an artist who signs away his soul for a magic paintbrush. Gods' Man was the first American wordless novel, and is considered a precursor of the graphic novel, whose development it influenced.
Ward first encountered the wordless novel with Frans Masereel's The Sun (1919) while studying art in Germany in 1926. He returned to the United States in 1927 and established a career for himself as an illustrator. He found Otto Nückel's wordless novel Destiny (1926) in New York City in 1929, and it inspired him to create such a work of his own. Gods' Man appeared a week before the Wall Street Crash of 1929; it nevertheless enjoyed strong sales and remains the best-selling American wordless novel. Its success inspired other Americans to experiment with the medium, including cartoonist Milt Gross, who parodied Gods' Man in He Done Her Wrong (1930). In the 1970s, Ward's example of wordless novels inspired cartoonists Art Spiegelman and Will Eisner to create their first graphic novels. (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 12
Cover of the anonymous play, The True Tragedy of Richard III (1594), which was "to be sold by William Barley, at his shop in Newgate Market"
William Barley (1565?–1614) was an English bookseller and publisher. He completed an apprenticeship as a draper in 1587, but was soon working in the London book trade. As a freeman of the Drapers' Company, he was embroiled in a dispute between it and the Stationers' Company over the rights of drapers to function as publishers and booksellers. He found himself in legal tangles throughout his life.
Barley's role in Elizabethan music publishing has proved to be a contentious issue among scholars. The assessments of him range from "a man of energy, determination, and ambition", to "somewhat remarkable", to "surely to some extent a rather nefarious figure". His contemporaries harshly criticised the quality of two of the first works of music that he published, but he was also influential in his field. (Full article...) - Image 13An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory is a 2010 textbook by the British political theorist Alasdair Cochrane. It is the first book in the publisher Palgrave Macmillan's Animal Ethics Series, edited by Andrew Linzey and Priscilla Cohn. Cochrane's book examines five schools of political theory—utilitarianism, liberalism, communitarianism, Marxism and feminism—and their respective relationships with questions concerning animal rights and the political status of (non-human) animals. Cochrane concludes that each tradition has something to offer to these issues, but ultimately presents his own account of interest-based animal rights as preferable to any. His account, though drawing from all examined traditions, builds primarily upon liberalism and utilitarianism.
An Introduction was reviewed positively in several academic publications. The political philosopher Steve Cooke said that Cochrane's own approach showed promise, and that the book would have benefited from devoting more space to it. Robert Garner, a political theorist, praised Cochrane's synthesis of such a broad range of literature, but argued that the work was too uncritical of the concept of justice as it might apply to animals. Cochrane's account of interest-based rights for animals was subsequently considered at greater length in his 2012 book Animal Rights Without Liberation, published by Columbia University Press. An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory was one of the first books to explore animals from the perspective of political theory, and became an established part of a literature critical of the topic's traditional neglect. (Full article...) - Image 14
John Vanbrugh (1664–1726), author of The Relapse, by Godfrey Kneller
The Relapse, or, Virtue in Danger is a Restoration comedy from 1696 written by John Vanbrugh. The play is a sequel to Colley Cibber's Love's Last Shift, or, The Fool in Fashion.
In Cibber's Love's Last Shift, a free-living Restoration rake is brought to repentance and reform by the ruses of his wife, while in The Relapse, the rake succumbs again to temptation and has a new love affair. His virtuous wife is also subjected to a determined seduction attempt, and resists with difficulty. (Full article...) - Image 15
Literary Hall is a mid-19th-century brick library, building and museum located in Romney, a city in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is located at the intersection of North High Street (West Virginia Route 28) and West Main Street (U.S. Route 50). Literary Hall was constructed between 1869 and 1870 by the Romney Literary Society.
Founded in 1819, the Romney Literary Society was the first literary organization of its kind in the present-day state of West Virginia, and one of the first in the United States. In 1846, the society constructed a building which housed the Romney Classical Institute and its library. The Romney Literary Society and the Romney Classical Institute both flourished and continued to grow in importance and influence until the onset of the American Civil War in 1861. (Full article...)
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![Plates vi & vii of the Edwin Smith Papyrus at the Rare Book Room, New York Academy of Medicine.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Edwin_Smith_Papyrus_v2.jpg/640px-Edwin_Smith_Papyrus_v2.jpg)
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- Image 1Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu (Japanese: 伊藤潤二の猫日記 よん&むー, Hepburn: Itō Junji no Neko Nikki: Yon & Mū) is an autobiographical manga written and illustrated by Junji Ito. Appearing as a serial in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Monthly Magazine Z from November 2007 to December 2008, it follows the adventures of J-kun, a horror manga artist as he adjusts to life with cats: Yon, whom his fiancėe brings along to their new house, and Mu, a Norwegian Forest cat whom the couple adopts as a kitten. Junji Ito's Cat Diary draws on autobiographical elements of Ito's personal experience with cats. Publisher Kodansha compiled the ten installments of the manga into a bound volume and released it in March 2009.
Kodansha Comics USA published an English-language translation of Junji Ito's Cat Diary in October 2015, which also included the contributions of Ito and his wife to the 2011 collection Teach Me, Michael! A Textbook in Support of Feline Disaster Victims. Upon publication, the manga received a favorable critical and commercial response, debuting in The New York Times's weekly list of the ten best-selling manga volumes. It received generally positive reviews from critics, who enjoyed it as a cat-centered manga whose humor was derived from the emphasis on the behavior of the cat caretaker, rather than the cat. Critical discussions have centered around Ito's use of realism and exaggerated horror to elicit moments of comedy, the manga's relationship to previous works by Ito, and how the artwork depicts the relationship between cats and their caregivers. (Full article...) - Image 2
On Growth and Form is a book by the Scottish mathematical biologist D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860–1948). The book is long – 793 pages in the first edition of 1917, 1116 pages in the second edition of 1942.
The book covers many topics including the effects of scale on the shape of animals and plants, large ones necessarily being relatively thick in shape; the effects of surface tension in shaping soap films and similar structures such as cells; the logarithmic spiral as seen in mollusc shells and ruminant horns; the arrangement of leaves and other plant parts (phyllotaxis); and Thompson's own method of transformations, showing the changes in shape of animal skulls and other structures on a Cartesian grid. (Full article...) - Image 3Judith Fingeret Krug (March 15, 1940 – April 11, 2009) was an American librarian, freedom of speech proponent, and critic of censorship. Krug became director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association in 1967. In 1969, she joined the Freedom to Read Foundation as its executive director. Krug co-founded Banned Books Week in 1982.
She coordinated the effort against the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which was the first attempt by the United States Congress to introduce a form of censorship of speech on the Internet. Krug strongly opposed the notion that libraries should censor the material that they provide to patrons. She supported laws and policies protecting the confidentiality of library use records. When the United States Department of Justice used the authority of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 to conduct searches of what once were confidential library databases, Krug raised a public outcry against this activity by the government. (Full article...) - Image 4Nirmala is a Hindi novel written by Indian writer Munshi Premchand. The melodramatic novel is centered on Nirmala, a young girl who was forced to marry a widower of her father's age. The plot unfolds to reveal her husband's suspicion of a relationship between her and his eldest son, a suspicion that leads to the son's death.
A poignant novel first published between 1925 and 1926, Nirmala's reformist agenda is transparent in its theme which deals with the question of dowry, and consequently mismatched marriages and related issues. The story uses fiction to highlight an era of much needed social reform in 1920s Indian society. Nirmala was serialised in Chand, a women's magazine in which the novel's feminist character was represented. Nirmala is somewhat like Godaan (published in 1936) in that it deals with the exploitation of the village poor, and Nandita (2016) in similarities of being shackled by society's narrow expectations of how a woman should be. Nirmala was translated by multiple scholarly translators. It was first translated in 1988 as The Second Wife by David Rubin, and in 1999 as Nirmala by Alok Rai, Premchand's grandson. (Full article...) - Image 5Wouldn'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...)
- Image 6Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner's Manual for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities is a non-fiction book about counterterrorism strategies, written by U.S. Navy retired cryptology analyst Malcolm Nance. The book is intended to help law enforcement and intelligence officials with the professional practice of behavior analysis and criminal psychology of anticipating potential terrorists before they commit criminal acts. Nance draws from the field of traditional criminal analysis to posit that detecting domestic criminals is similar to determining which individuals are likely to commit acts of terrorism. The book provides resources for the law enforcement official including descriptions of devices used for possible bombs, a database of terrorist networks, and a list of references used. Nance gives the reader background on Al-Qaeda tactics, clandestine cell systems and sleeper agents, and terrorist communication methods.
Terrorist Recognition Handbook received two separate book reviews in the academic journal Perspectives on Terrorism. The journal placed the book on its "Top 150 Books on Terrorism and Counterterrorism". Its second review of the book wrote that the Terrorist Recognition Handbook "provides a comprehensive and detailed treatment of terrorism and counter-terrorism." A review published by RSA Conference called it "required reading", and "a must-read for anyone tasked with or interested in anti-terrorism activities." Midwest Book Review rated it "highly recommended for those in charge of security and community library military collections." (Full article...) - Image 7
A scene from the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s Freydal Illuminated manuscript: Freydal jousts with Veit von Wolkenstein (fol.133}
Freydal is an uncompleted illustrated prose narrative commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in the early 16th century. It was intended to be a romantic allegorical account of Maximilian's own participation in a series of jousting tournaments in the guise of the tale's eponymous hero, Freydal. In the story, Freydal takes part in the tournaments to prove that he is worthy to marry a princess, who is a fictionalised representation of Maximilian's late wife, Mary of Burgundy.
The text was never completed, although a manuscript draft is held by the Austrian National Library. Over 200 high quality drawings were created to be used as planning sketches, 203 of which are held in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., with a small number of others preserved in the British Museum and the Vatican Library. Based on these drawings, 256 miniature paintings were created by court painters, and 255 are preserved in an illuminated manuscript, the Freydal tournament book held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. These miniatures vividly record the different types of jousts that were popular at the time as well as the court masquerades, or ‘mummeries’, that took place at the end of the day after each tournament. It is the most extensive visual record of late medieval tournaments and court masquerades that exists. (Full article...) - Image 8
The Colours of Animals is a zoology book written in 1890 by Sir Edward Bagnall Poulton (1856–1943). It was the first substantial textbook to argue the case for Darwinian selection applying to all aspects of animal coloration. The book also pioneered the concept of frequency-dependent selection and introduced the term "aposematism".
The book begins with a brief account of the physical causes of animal coloration. The second chapter gives an overview of the book, describing the various uses of colour in terms of the advantages it can bring through natural selection. The next seven chapters describe camouflage, both in predators and in prey. Methods of camouflage covered include background matching, resemblance to specific objects such as bird droppings, self-decoration with materials from the environment, and the seasonal colour change of arctic animals. Two chapters cover warning colours, including both Batesian mimicry, where the mimic is edible, and Müllerian mimicry, where distasteful species mimic each other. A chapter then looks at how animals combine multiple methods of defence, for instance in the puss moth. Two chapters examine coloration related to sexual selection. Finally Poulton summarizes the subject with a fold-out table including a set of Greek derived words that he invented, of which "aposematic" and "cryptic" survive in biological usage. (Full article...) - Image 9America's 60 Families is a book by American journalist Ferdinand Lundberg published in 1937 by Vanguard Press. It is an argumentative analysis of wealth and class in the United States, and how they are leveraged for purposes of political and economic power, specifically by what the author contends is a "plutocratic circle" composed of a tightly interlinked group of 60 families.
The controversial study has met with mixed reactions since its publication. Though praised by some contemporary and modern reviewers, and once cited in a speech by Harold L. Ickes, it has also been criticized by others and was the subject of a 1938 libel suit by DuPont over factual inaccuracies contained in the text. In 1968 Lundberg published The Rich and the Super-Rich, described by some sources as a sequel to America's 60 Families. (Full article...) - Image 10A Book of Mediterranean Food was an influential cookery book written by Elizabeth David in 1950, her first, and published by John Lehmann. After years of rationing and wartime austerity, the book brought light and colour back to English cooking, with simple fresh ingredients, from David's experience of Mediterranean cooking while living in France, Italy and Greece. The book was illustrated by John Minton, and the chapters were introduced with quotations from famous writers.
At the time, many ingredients were scarcely obtainable, but the book was quickly recognised as serious, and within a few years it profoundly changed English cooking and eating habits. (Full article...) - Image 11The Secret River is a children's fantasy novel by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling. Published in 1955, The Secret River received a Newbery Honor Award. The first edition, illustrated by Caldecott Medal winner Leonard Weisgard, was issued after Rawlings' death. The book was revised and reissued in 2009 with illustrations by Caldecott Medalists Leo and Diane Dillon. The new edition received an international children's book design award in 2012. The Secret River is the only book Rawlings wrote specifically for children. The story of young Calpurnia, who goes on a quest to find a magical river and catch fish for her starving family and friends, it has two themes common in Rawlings' writing, the magic of childhood and the struggle of people to survive in a harsh environment. (Full article...)
- Image 12How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It (or The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots invention of the Modern World) is a non-fiction book written by American historian Arthur Herman. The book examines the origins of the Scottish Enlightenment and what impact it had on the modern world. Herman focuses principally on individuals, presenting their biographies in the context of their individual fields and also in terms of the theme of Scottish contributions to the world.
The book was published as a hardcover in November 2001 by Crown Publishing Group and as a trade paperback in September 2002. Critics found the thesis to be over-reaching but descriptive of the Scots' disproportionate impact on modernity. In the American market, the trade paperback peaked at #3 on The Washington Post bestseller list, while in the Canadian market it peaked at #1. (Full article...) - Image 13
Geographia Neoteriki (Greek: Γεωγραφία Νεωτερική Modern Geography) is a geography book written in Greek by Daniel Philippidis and Grigorios Konstantas and printed in Vienna in 1791. It focused on both the physical and human geography features of the European continent and especially on Southeastern Europe, and is considered one of the most remarkable works of the modern Greek Enlightenment. The authors of the Geographia Neoteriki adopted new geographical methodologies for that time, which were primarily based on personal examination of the described areas and used as sources a number of contemporary European handbooks.
The work, written in a vernacular language, also described the contemporary social developments and expressed ideas that were considered revolutionary and anticlerical, and addressed the political and economic decay of the Ottoman Empire. Geographia Neoteriki was welcomed with enthusiasm by western intellectual circles, especially in France, but on the other hand, it was largely neglected by Greek scholars. (Full article...) - Image 14
Freedom of Expression® is a book written by Kembrew McLeod about freedom of speech issues involving concepts of intellectual property. The book was first published in 2005 by Doubleday as Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity, and in 2007 by University of Minnesota Press as Freedom of Expression®: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property. The paperback edition includes a foreword by Lawrence Lessig. The author recounts a history of the use of counter-cultural artistry, illegal art, and the use of copyrighted works in art as a form of fair use and creative expression. The book encourages the reader to continue such uses in art and other forms of creative expression.
The book received a positive reception and the Intellectual Freedom Round Table of the American Library Association awarded McLeod with the Eli M. Oboler Memorial Award, which honors the "best published work in the area of intellectual freedom". A review in The American Scholar said that McLeod " ... delivers a lively, personal account of the ways intellectual property messes with people—and how he messes with intellectual property." American Book Review said the work is "a clever compendium of examples" for those familiar with its subject matter. The Journal of Popular Culture called it "an informative, thought-provoking, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny examination of specific ways the privatization of ideas suppresses creativity in contemporary culture." Publishers Weekly said that McLeod's views echo prior comments about intellectual property by academics—including Lessig. (Full article...) - Image 15Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass is a collection of essays written by British writer, doctor and psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple and published in book form by Ivan R. Dee in 2001. In 1994, the Manhattan Institute started publishing the contents of these essays in the City Journal magazine. They are about personal responsibility, the mentality of society as a whole and the troubles of the underclass. Dalrymple had problems in finding a British publisher to help him turn his individual essays into a collection, so he eventually turned to American companies for publication.
The main themes expressed in the collection include how an individual's worldview affects their actions and the attitudes of those around them, the philosophy of social determinism and why a lack of personal responsibility for one's actions results from an individual's beliefs in determinism. The writing style that Dalrymple explains these in was praised by reviewers for its clear, witty prose and for going immediately to the heart of the matter that is being discussed. (Full article...)
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“ | An ordinary man can...surround himself with two thousand books..and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy. | ” |
— Augustine Birrell |
Did you know
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Gutenberg_Bible.jpg/640px-Gutenberg_Bible.jpg)
- ...that by 2007, the Bible was translated into 429 languages, with portions of it translated in 2,426 languages?(Pictured)
- ...that Muslims believe that the Qur’ān is the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind?
- ...that the Rig Veda is one of the oldest religious texts?
General images
- Image 1Decorative binding with figurehead of the 12th century manuscript Liber Landavensis (from Bookbinding)
- Image 3European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books)
- Image 5A traditional bookbinder at work (from Bookbinding)
- Image 7Example of blind tooling a book binding with exquisite detail (from Bookbinding)
- Image 8Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books)
- Image 9Hardbound book with half leather binding (spine and corners) and marbled boards (from Bookbinding)
- Image 11Sammelband of three alchemical treatises, bound in Strasbourg by Samuel Emmel c. 1568, showing metal clasps and leather covering of boards (from Bookbinding)
- Image 12Book conservators at the State Library of New South Wales, 1943 (from Bookbinding)
- Image 13The 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)
- Image 14The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) (from History of books)
- Image 15Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books)
- Image 16Page from a Jain manuscript depicting the birth of Mahavira, c. 1400 (from History of books)
- Image 17An author portrait of Jean Miélot writing his compilation of the Miracles of Our Lady, one of his many popular works. (from History of books)
- Image 19A 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
- Image 20A 15th-century Incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books)
- Image 21Jikji, 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)
- Image 22Modern book spine designs (from Bookbinding)
- Image 24Rebacking saving original spine, showing one volume finished and one untouched (from Bookbinding)
- Image 26Bookbinder's type holder (from Bookbinding)
- Image 27Cloth book cover with attached paper panel, mimicking half leather binding (from Bookbinding)
- Image 28Traditionally sewn book opened flat (from Bookbinding)
- Image 29European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books)
- Image 30Design by Hans Holbein the Younger for a metalwork book cover (or treasure binding) (from Book design)
- Image 31Three books with different titling orientations:
(left) ascending
(middle) descending
(right) upright (from Bookbinding) - Image 32Scheme of common book design(from Bookbinding)
- Belly band
- Flap
- Endpaper
- Book cover
- Head
- Fore edge
- Tail
- Right page, recto
- Left page, verso
- Gutter
- Image 33Page spread with J. A. van de Graaf's construction of classical text area (print space) and margin proportions (from Book design)
- Image 34European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books)
- Image 35Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books)
- Image 3612-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)
- Image 37Hardbound book spine stitching (from Bookbinding)
- Image 38A Chinese bamboo book (from History of books)
- Image 39Early medieval bookcase containing about ten codices depicted in the Codex Amiatinus (c. 700) (from Bookbinding)
- Image 40The 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)
- Image 41Page from the Blue Quran manuscript, ca. 9th or 10th century CE (from History of books)
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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 add more!
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