Talk:Book

Book (final version) received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which was archived on 6 March 2024. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article.

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The Goat is lebron james and lebron and basketball is better than books

should "dummy books" even be a labeled subsection? it seems like a strange thing to give equal time to as ebooks or audiobooks. LarstonMarston (talk) 18:13, 5 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

i removed it and moved it to the outline of books for now. LarstonMarston (talk) 01:00, 6 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Why was it removed altogether? it makes no sense not to include it Hogyncymru (talk) 04:58, 7 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 9 January 2024 and 12 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): PinkiRani001 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Gurpreetkaur019.

— Assignment last updated by SINGH KHUSHWINDER (talk) 02:29, 12 April 2024 (UTC)Reply

Could a fellow bookworm please kindly incorporate this bit where it best fits in the article: Estonia leads the world in book ownership, on average Estonians own 218 books per house, and 35% own 350 books or more. A 2018 study published in the journal Social Science Research (cited in The Guardian) "Novel news: world's biggest bookworms revealed in study", 12 Oct 2018: "Estonians, who lead the world, averaged 218, and 35% owned 350 books or more. Norway (212), Sweden (210) and the Czech Republic (204) also beat English-speaking countries like the UK (143) and the US (114)." ^[1] Thanks 46.131.68.215 (talk) 10:56, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

re: this revision: i just thought the original was more direct as an introduction because it had fewer clauses. what terminology are you referring to specifically? @Johnbod LarstonMarston (talk) 14:51, 16 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

The old text:

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.^[1] Modern 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.

- had all sorts of problems. It is especially confused around "medium" and "codex". The first and penultimate sentences together say that a codex is not a book. But of course it is, and almost all modern books are in codex format. The codex, the scroll and the tablet, are not mediums but different formats for the single medium of "book". Did you write this version? Johnbod (talk) 15:17, 16 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

Or we could go back to the older version (Oct 23):

A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover.^[2] It can also be a handwritten or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers. The technical term for this physical arrangement is codex (plural, codices). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page.

This has some strengths also. Johnbod (talk) 15:21, 16 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

i wrote some of the old version. i think there is a distinction to make between the codex and "modern books": the wiki article describes it as the "ancestor of the modern book" and a term mostly reserved for older manuscripts. it's made clear later in the book article that modern printed books follow a codex format. it talks about definitional confusion as well, and the historical definition given by james raven would encompass all the other written formats. i just think it's helpful to give a description of modern printed books first because they're most traditionally thought of as "books". maybe something like this:

A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images. Modern books are typically composed of many pages, bound together and protected by a cover. They were preceded by many other written formats, such as the codex, the scroll and the tablet. The book publishing process is the series of steps involved in their creation and dissemination. LarstonMarston (talk) 15:59, 16 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

i changed the paragraph based on this. let me know if you have any other suggestions. LarstonMarston (talk) 16:04, 16 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Johnbod i still don't understand the issue with distinguishing between the codex and modern books, since the term is "reserved for older manuscript books, which mostly used sheets of vellum, parchment, or papyrus". the fact that modern books technically follow a codex format can be clarified later in the article. would you be okay with going to the new version but removing reference to the codex as an older format, e.g.:

A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images. Modern books are typically composed of many pages, bound together and protected by a cover. They were preceded by several older formats, such as the scroll and the tablet. The book publishing process is the series of steps involved in their creation and dissemination. LarstonMarston (talk) 16:55, 16 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think the first sentence of this article,

A book is an object recording information in the form of printed writing or images.

is way too narrow. Some books aren't printed (See Pop-up book) and aren't limited to writing or images. For example, there could be board games inside a "book" with parts. Also see Fifty Shades of Gray; to a normal reader of this page, that wouldn't be considered a book from that first sentence. Sure, an image is described as a "visual representation" on Wikipedia, but another reader could have a different definiton. Here's another starting sentence that can be used:

A book is an object recording or representing ideas/information through visualisations, text, or other components, in the form of surfaces binded together (such as pages).

~ fungifungus • talk • contribs • global 01:22, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hmm, maybe something like, "A book is an object for recording information as text or images." I see the point about the current line being narrow, but the lead needs to be written for the broadest audience and not at a post-grad reading level. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:31, 25 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, that would work, but many objects other than books can record information as text or images. You could look at the Merriam-Webster defintion for book ([1]), in which some definitions focus on the physical description.~ fungifungus • talk • contribs • global 01:16, 26 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

The narrower Merriam-Webster definitions 1a and 1b are essentially describing a codex. I think improvements will stem from crafting the first paragraph, not merely a perfectly top-heavy lead sentence. This article is necessarily broader in scope: I think the first three sentences do good introducing the reader—though the physical characteristics of scrolls and tablets should be briefly mentioned—but , where new editions are published according to a regular schedule. The book publishing process is the series of steps involved in their creation and dissemination. should be shuffled later into the lead. Instead, the paragraph should complete its survey of the broadest notions people have when they think of books—as "major compiled work" in the most abstract, and as something that yields knowledge or understanding to directly quote MW. Remsense ‥ 论 01:35, 26 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Remsense: I've tried to slide those bits down, if you want to take a stab at completing the first paragraph, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 01:55, 26 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

Spent far too long trying to chisel this one sentence out: The concept of a book extends from the physical objects themselves to the substantial written works that they carry—and the composition, collation, and distribution of which they make possible. MacLuhan, help. Remsense ‥ 论 03:53, 26 March 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am making substantial revisions to improve the article and (hopefully) clarify its scope.

• Lead: Define "book" primarily as a written work, with the physical paper/codex as the main one of several formats.
• Reduce detailed information about the physical processes of printing, paper, and binding.
• Refocus "History" on the evolution and usage of formats, rather than how each type of book was produced.
• Definitions: try to more clearly acknowledge the lack of a single definition
• Remove other forms of "book" like the books of The Bible or the "books" within Virgil's Aeneid, which are not books in the sense that this article is talking about.

I am building from the scope I see defined across other reference works including:

Columbia Encyclopedia

"The word book has come to have many meanings, e.g., any collection of sheets of paper, wood, or other material sewn or bound together; a division of a written work (books of the Bible, books of Caesar's Gallic War); and statements of financial accounting (bookkeeping). The primary meaning today is, however, a written work either in manuscript or in printed or electronic form that is of substantial length."

The Oxford Companion to the Book

"A word that has long been used interchangeably and variously to signify any of the many kinds of text that have been circulated in written or printed forms, and the material objects through which those words and images are transmitted. The ancestor of the modern word ‘book’ is used in both senses in Anglo-Saxon documents. This Oxford Companion is a book in the abstract, non-corporeal sense (and can be thus described in its Internet manifestation), and also in the physical sense of a three-dimensional object in *codex format. Books in that first sense have been manifested in the second one in a wide variety of shapes and sizes from ephemera (see 14) to *elephant folios, using many different materials."

Britannica

"book, published work of literature or scholarship; the term has been defined by UNESCO for statistical purposes as a “non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages excluding covers,” but no strict definition satisfactorily covers the variety of publications so identified."

Merriam-Webster

"1.c. a long written or printed literary composition"

Cambridge Dictionary

"a written text that can be published in printed or electronic form"

Dictionary.com

"1. a handwritten or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers. 2. a work of fiction or nonfiction in an electronic format."

Collins dictionary

"A book is a number of pieces of paper, usually with words printed on them, which are fastened together and fixed inside a cover of stronger paper or cardboard. Books contain information, stories, or poetry, for example. "

I think a lot of the article's ambiguous scope has come from, not just from the vague definitions of "book", but also from the earliest version of the page which was unsourced and already had conflicting scopes. When removing content, I am linking to it either from this article or from Book (disambiguation). Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:17, 24 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

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books are one of the most important things in history Bradley98765 (talk) 13:19, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply

 Not done. It's not clear what changes you want to make. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:57, 26 March 2026 (UTC)Reply