Book
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A book is a collection of papers held together between two covers to keep the papers inside safe. Hardcover books have hard covers made of cardboard covered in cloth or leather and are usually sewn together. Paperback books have covers of stiff paper and are usually glued together. Books can also be read aloud and recorded on tapes and compact discs. These books are called audiobooks.
Books can be borrowed from a library or bought from a bookstore. People can make their own books and fill them with family photos, drawings, or their own writing. Some books are empty inside, like a diary, address book, or photo album. Most of the time, the word "book" means that the pages inside have words printed or written on them.
Some books are written just for children, or for entertainment, while other books are for studying something in school such as math or history. Many books have photographs or drawings. Some books don't.
People who cannot read books, or any type of writing are called illiterate.
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[change] Types of books
There are two main kinds of books: fiction and non-fiction.
[change] Fiction
These books are about stories that did not happen, and have been imagined by the author. Some books are based on real events from history, but the author has created imaginary characters or dialogue for the events.
[change] Non-fiction
Books of non-fiction are about true facts or things that really happened. Some examples are dictionaries, cookbooks, textbooks for learning in school, or a biography (someone's life story).
[change] Historical
The first kind of book was a scroll, a long sheet rolled up. The sheet could have been made of papyrus (made by the Egyptians, by weaving the inner stems of the papyrus plant and then hammering them together), or parchment or vellum (very thin animal skin, first used by the ancient Greeks), or the kind of paper we use today (made from plant fibers and pulp, invented by the ancient Chinese). The Romans were the first people to put flat pieces of paper between a cover, which they called a codex.
Scrolls and codexes were all written by hand. The Chinese invented woodblock printing, where shapes are carved out of a block of wood, then ink is applied to the carved side, and the block is pressed onto the paper. This way of making books was very slow, and so very few people had these kinds of books.
Johannes Gutenberg was the first European to invent the printing press, a machine that can print many pages quickly. With the printing press, books become much easier to make and cost much less money to make, so more people could have books.
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