Portal:Books
The Books Portal
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As a conceptual object, a book refers to a written work of substantial length, which may be distributed either physically or digitally as an ebook. These works can be broadly classified into fiction (containing invented content, often narratives) and non-fiction (containing content intended as factual truth). A physical book may not contain such a work: for example, it may contain only drawings, engravings, photographs, puzzles, or removable content like paper dolls. It may also be left empty for personal use, as in the case of account books, appointment books, autograph books, notebooks, diaries and sketchbooks.
Books are sold at both regular stores and specialized bookstores, as well as online for delivery, and can be borrowed from libraries. The reception of books has led to a number of social consequences, including censorship.
The modern book industry has seen several major changes due to new technologies, including ebooks and audiobooks (recordings of books being read aloud). Awareness of the needs of print-disabled people has led to a rise in formats designed for greater accessibility, such as braille printing and large-print editions. Google Books estimated in 2010 that approximately 130 million total unique books had been published. (Full article...)
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Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.-
The World Without Us is a 2007 non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared, written by American journalist Alan Weisman and published by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books. It is a book-length expansion of Weisman's own February 2005 Discover article "Earth Without People". Written largely as a thought experiment, it outlines, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Weisman concludes that residential neighborhoods would become forests within 500 years, and that radioactive waste, bronze statues, plastics and Mount Rushmore would be among the longest-lasting evidence of human presence on Earth.
The author of four previous books and numerous articles for magazines, Weisman had traveled to interview academics, scientists and other authorities. He used quotations from these interviews to explain the effects of the natural environment and to substantiate predictions. The book has been translated and published in many countries. It was successful in the U.S., reaching #6 on the New York Times Best Seller list and #1 on the San Francisco Chronicle Best-Sellers list in September 2007. It ranked #1 on Time and Entertainment Weekly's top 10 non-fiction books of 2007. (Full article...) -
Beginning of the text
The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is an early 8th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western bookbinding to survive, and both the 94 vellum folios and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age. With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres (5.4 in × 3.6 in), the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity.
The book takes its name from Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, North East England, in whose tomb it was placed, probably a few years after his death in 687. Although it was long regarded as Cuthbert's personal copy of the Gospel, to which there are early references, and so a relic of the saint, the book is now thought to date from shortly after Cuthbert's death. It was probably a gift from Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey, where it was written, intended to be placed in St Cuthbert's coffin in the few decades after this was placed behind the altar at Lindisfarne in 698. It presumably remained in the coffin through its long travels after 875, forced by Viking invasions, ending at Durham Cathedral. The book was found inside the coffin and removed in 1104 when the burial was once again moved within the cathedral. It was kept there with other relics, and important visitors were able to wear the book in a leather bag around their necks. It is thought that after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England by Henry VIII between 1536 and 1541, the book passed to collectors. It was eventually given to Stonyhurst College, the Jesuit school in Lancashire. (Full article...) -
Lemurs of Madagascar is a 2010 reference work and field guide for the lemurs of Madagascar, giving descriptions and biogeographic data for the known species. The primary contributor is Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, and the cover art and illustrations are drawn by Stephen D. Nash. Currently in its third edition, the book provides details about all known lemur species, general information about lemurs and their history, and tips for identifying species. Four related pocket field guides have also been released, containing color illustrations of each species, miniature range maps, and species checklists.
The first edition was reviewed favorably in the International Journal of Primatology, Conservation Biology, and Lemur News. Reviewers, including Alison Jolly, praised the book for its depth of coverage, illustrations, and discussion of topics including conservation, evolution, and the recently extinct subfossil lemurs. Each agreed that the book was an excellent resource for a wide audience, including ecotourists and lemur researchers. A lengthy review of the second edition was published in the American Journal of Primatology, where it received similar favorable comments. The third edition was reviewed favorably in Lemur News; the reviewer praised the expanded content of the book but was concerned that the edition was not as portable as its predecessors. (Full article...) -
The 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...) -
First page of the first edition of Thoughts (1787)
Thoughts on the education of daughters: with reflections on female conduct, in the more important duties of life is the first published work of the British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Published in 1787 by her friend Joseph Johnson, Thoughts is a conduct book that offers advice on female education to the emerging British middle class. Although dominated by considerations of morality and etiquette, the text also contains basic child-rearing instructions, such as how to care for an infant.
An early version of the modern self-help book, the 18th-century British conduct book drew on many literary traditions, such as advice manuals and religious narratives. There was an explosion in the number of conduct books published during the second half of the 18th century, and Wollstonecraft took advantage of this burgeoning market when she published Thoughts. However, the book was only moderately successful: it was favourably reviewed, but only by one journal and it was reprinted only once. Although it was excerpted in popular contemporary magazines, it was not republished until the rise of feminist literary criticism in the 1970s. (Full article...) -
All 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...) -
Madman's Drum is a wordless novel by American artist Lynd Ward (1905–1985), published in 1930. It is the second of Ward's six wordless novels. The 118 wood-engraved images of Madman's Drum tell the story of a slave trader who steals a demon-faced drum from an African he murders, and the consequences for him and his family.
Ward's first wordless novel was Gods' Man of 1929. Ward was more ambitious with his second work in the medium: the characters are more nuanced, the plot more developed and complicated, and the outrage at social injustice more explicit. Ward used a wider variety of carving tools to achieve a finer degree of detail in the artwork, and was expressive in his use of symbolism and exaggerated emotional facial expressions. (Full article...) -
Title page from the first edition of Letters (1796)
Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796) is a personal travel narrative by the eighteenth-century British feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft. The twenty-five letters cover a wide range of topics, from sociological reflections on Scandinavia and its peoples to philosophical questions regarding identity. Published by Wollstonecraft's career-long publisher, Joseph Johnson, it was the last work issued during her lifetime.
Wollstonecraft undertook her tour of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark in order to retrieve a stolen treasure ship for her lover, Gilbert Imlay. Believing that the journey would restore their strained relationship, she eagerly set off. However, over the course of the three months she spent in Scandinavia, she realized that Imlay had no intention of renewing the relationship. The letters, which constitute the text, drawn from her journal and from missives she sent to Imlay, reflect her anger and melancholy over his repeated betrayals. Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark is therefore both a travel narrative and an autobiographical memoir. (Full article...) -
Title page from the second volume of Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France (1838)
The Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men comprised ten volumes of Dionysius Lardner's 133-volume Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–1846). Aimed at the self-educating middle class, this encyclopedia was written during the 19th-century literary revolution in Britain that encouraged more people to read.
The Lives formed part of the Cabinet of Biography in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia. Within the set of ten, the three-volume Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain and Portugal (1835–37) and the two-volume Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France (1838–39) consist of biographies of important writers and thinkers of the 14th to 18th centuries. Most of them were written by the Romantic writer Mary Shelley. Shelley's biographies reveal her as a professional woman of letters, contracted to produce several volumes of works and paid well to do so. Her extensive knowledge of history and languages, her ability to tell a gripping biographical narrative, and her interest in the burgeoning field of feminist historiography are reflected in these works. (Full article...) -
Getting 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...) -
A 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...) -
Night is a 1960 memoir by Elie Wiesel based on his Holocaust experiences with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, toward the end of the Second World War in Europe. In just over 100 pages of sparse and fragmented narrative, Wiesel writes about his loss of faith and increasing disgust with humanity, recounting his experiences from the Nazi-established ghettos in his hometown of Sighet, Romania, to his migration through multiple concentration camps. The typical parent–child relationship is inverted as his father dwindled in the camps to a helpless state while Wiesel himself became his teenaged caregiver. His father died in January 1945, taken to the crematory after deteriorating from dysentery and a beating while Wiesel lay silently on the bunk above him for fear of being beaten too. The memoir ends shortly after the United States Army liberated Buchenwald in April 1945.
After the war, Wiesel moved to Paris and in 1954 completed an 862-page manuscript in Yiddish about his experiences, published in Argentina as the 245-page Un di velt hot geshvign ("And the World Remained Silent"). The novelist François Mauriac helped him find a French publisher. Les Éditions de Minuit published 178 pages as La Nuit in 1958, and in 1960 Hill & Wang in New York published a 116-page translation as Night. (Full article...) -
Louis Riel is a historical biography in comics by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, published as a book in 2003 after serialization in 1999–2003. The story deals with Métis rebel leader Louis Riel's antagonistic relationship with the newly established Canadian government. It begins shortly before the 1869 Red River Rebellion, and ends with Riel's 1885 hanging for high treason. The book explores Riel's possible schizophrenia—he believed God had named him Prophet of the New World, destined to lead the Métis people to freedom.
The work is noted for its emotional disengagement, its intentionally flat dialogue, and a minimalist drawing style inspired by that of Harold Gray's comic strip Little Orphan Annie. Unusual for comics of the time, it includes a full scholarly apparatus: a foreword, index, bibliography, and end notes. The lengthy, hand-lettered appendix provides insight into Brown's creative process and biases and highlights where he changed historical facts to create a more engaging story, such as incorporating a conspiracy theory not widely accepted by historians. Brown became interested in the issue of property rights while researching the book, which led to a public change in his politics from anarchism to libertarianism. (Full article...) -
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...) -
The Log from the Sea of Cortez is an English-language book written by American author John Steinbeck and published in 1951. It details a six-week (March 11 – April 20) marine specimen-collecting boat expedition he made in 1940 at various sites in the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez), with his friend, the marine biologist Ed Ricketts. It is regarded as one of Steinbeck's most important works of non-fiction chiefly because of the involvement of Ricketts, who shaped Steinbeck's thinking and provided the prototype for many of the pivotal characters in his fiction, and the insights it gives into the philosophies of the two men.
The Log from the Sea of Cortez is the narrative portion of an earlier work, Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research, which was published by Steinbeck and Ricketts shortly after their return from the Gulf of California, and combined the journals of the collecting expedition, reworked by Steinbeck, with Ricketts' species catalogue. After Ricketts' death in 1948, Steinbeck dropped the species catalogue from the earlier work and republished it with a eulogy to his friend added as a foreword. (Full article...)
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Credit: Eadfrith of Lindisfarne
The Lindisfarne Gospels is an illuminated Latin manuscript of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The manuscript was produced on Lindisfarne in Northumbria in the late 7th century or early 8th century.
More Did you know (auto generated)
- ... that historian Anne Balay wrote two books on oral histories from LGBT steelworkers and truck drivers?
- ... that as well as books, Hove's first public library featured a disembowelling knife and a Japanese executioner's sword?
- ... that a German court's decision involving football stadiums may preclude Facebook from arbitrarily banning users?
- ... that The Ugly Black Bird, a Polish book that discredited the autobiographical value of Kosiński's The Painted Bird, initially received reviews that were "more negative than favourable"?
- ... that the stylized animation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was inspired by rough sketches in school notebooks?
- ... that the adventure game Until Then has an in-universe version of Facebook where the player can like and comment on other characters' posts?
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White 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...) -
Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited is a 1999 biography of American General Samuel Chapman Armstrong and his associated normal school for freedmen, Hampton Institute, written by Robert Francis Engs and published by the University of Tennessee Press. The first full biography of its kind, the book portrays Armstrong as a complex politician and administrator in the postbellum period who balanced the needs of opposed parties surrounding the Virginia school: its African American students, Southern white neighbors, and Northern philanthropist funders. Previous works presented Armstrong in a polarized fashion, as either a savior or handicap for freedmen. The book emphasizes Armstrong's upbringing as a missionary in Hawaii in the development of his educational philosophy.
Reviewers complimented the book's balanced presentation of Armstrong, grounded use of the period's thought, and contribution to the historiography of industrial education. They felt the book lacked community and state historical context, as well as recent scholarship on Native Americans at Hampton. (Full article...) -
Judith 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...) -
Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate is a 2002 book by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein and editor Debra Ann Levy. The book is a collection of newspaper articles, mostly from The Globe and Mail, with a few magazine articles from The Nation and speech transcripts. The articles and speeches were all written by Klein in the 30 months after the publication of her first book, No Logo (1999), from December 1999 to March 2002. The articles focus upon the anti-globalization movement, including protest events and responses by law enforcement. The book was published in North America and the United Kingdom in October 2002.
The imagery of fences and windows appear throughout the work. The fences represent exclusion and barriers, while the windows are opportunities for expressing alternative ideas. The book garnered both positive and negative reviews. Two of the articles were singled out as exceptional by several reviewers: "America is not a Hamburger" discusses the US State Department's attempt to re-brand America's image overseas; "The Brutal Calculus of Suffering" discusses media portrayals of war. (Full article...) -
The Anarchist Cookbook, first published in 1971, is a book containing instructions for the manufacture of explosives, rudimentary telecommunications phreaking devices, and related weapons, as well as instructions for the home manufacture of illicit drugs, including LSD. It was written by William Powell at the apex of the counterculture era to protest against United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. Powell converted to Anglicanism in 1976 and later attempted to have the book removed from circulation. However, the copyright belonged to the publisher, who continued circulation until the company was acquired in 1991. Its legality has been questioned in several jurisdictions. (Full article...) -
Big Girls Don't Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women is a 2010 non-fiction book written by the American journalist Rebecca Traister and published by Free Press. The book focuses on women's contributions to and experiences of the 2008 United States presidential election. Traister places particular focus on four main political figures—Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, and Elizabeth Edwards—as well as women in the media, including the journalists Katie Couric and Rachel Maddow, and the comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who portrayed Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton on Saturday Night Live, respectively. Traister also describes her personal experience of the electoral campaign and her shift from supporting John Edwards to Hillary Clinton.
Traister began writing about the presidential election while working as a political columnist for Salon; her coverage for Salon provided much of the book's content. Traister aimed to write an account of the election through a feminist perspective, centred on the events that she felt were otherwise underreported in the media. The book was generally well received by critics. (Full article...) -
Title page from the first edition of The Fairchild Family, Part I
The History of the Fairchild Family by Mary Martha Sherwood was a series of bestselling children's books in nineteenth-century Britain. The three volumes, published in 1818, 1842 and 1847, detail the lives of the Fairchild children. Part I, which was in print for over a century, focuses on Emily, Lucy and Henry's realization of their "human depravity" (original sin) and their consequent need for redemption; Parts II and III emphasize more worldly lessons such as etiquette and virtuous consumerism.
During the nineteenth century, The Fairchild Family was renowned for its realistic portrayal of childhood and its humor, but Sherwood's book fell from favor as Britain became increasingly secularized and new fashions in children's literature came to dominate the literary scene, represented by works such as Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. In the twentieth century the books have most often been viewed as quintessential examples of the didactic style of children's writing popular before Alice. (Full article...) -
God's Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School is a 1986 book written by Alan Peshkin and published by the University of Chicago Press. It is the product of his late 1970s 18-month ethnographic study of a 350-person Christian fundamentalist Baptist school in Illinois. He describes the K–12 day school's function as a total institution that educates about a singular truth (God's will) and subordination before God. The final chapter is a comparative analysis of the school and other schools, institutions, and social movements, wherein Peshkin concludes that the school is divisive in American society for promoting intolerance towards religious plurality, the very condition that permits the school's existence.
Reviewers wrote that Peshkin's account was fair, and praised his decision to let the participants speak for themselves through quotations. They also noted that the book filled a literary lacuna in scholarly understanding of the rapidly expanding and understudied fundamentalist Christian school. (Full article...) -
Cutting the Mustard: Affirmative Action and the Nature of Excellence is a 1987 non-fiction book by civil libertarian and United States lawyer Marjorie Heins about the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and its relationship to affirmative action and sexism. Heins discusses the case of Nancy Richardson, dean of student affairs at the Boston University School of Theology, who was removed from her position by the school's administration in 1981. Heins represented Richardson in an unsuccessful lawsuit against Boston University for wrongful termination and sexism. Cutting the Mustard recounts the case, interspersing reflections on the lawsuit with a discussion of relevant case law, decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States related to affirmative action and multiple criticisms of contradictory court decisions in affirmative-action cases.
The book was positively received by the Harvard Law Review which recommended From Midterms to Ministry for further information. It was also reviewed by the Women's Review of Books, Women's Rights Law Reporter and California Lawyer. A review in Library Journal by a Harvard Law School librarian criticized the book for lacking a substantive analysis of the case. (Full article...) -
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru is an account of a child growing up in the Rajneesh movement led by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The book is a firsthand account, written by Tim Guest at the age of 27, years after his experiences. The book was published in 2004 by Granta Books. The book's title is a reference to the term "the orange people", which was used to refer to members of the Rajneesh movement due to the color they dyed their clothes.
Guest describes how his mother was initially raised in strict Catholicism, but later turned to a tape of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh after going through a period of experimenting with sex and drugs. She dyed all of her clothes orange, took on the name of "Ma Prem Vismaya", and "Yogesh" for her son, and moved to a Rajneesh movement commune near Bombay. Guest's mother moved to many different communes, and had leadership roles within the movement, eventually running a commune in Suffolk. Guest recounts how he regretted the absence of his mother's presence during this time, and describes controversial living conditions with other children at the various ashrams. Guest and his mother moved to the 64,000-acre (260 km2) commune in Oregon, but his mother was demoted in position and sent to live at a different commune in Cologne. His family later disassociated from the Rajneesh movement and moved back to North London, where they each encountered difficulties reintegrating back into mainstream society. (Full article...) -
America'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...) -
Kafka's Prayer is a 1947 book-length analysis of the novelist Franz Kafka and his works by Paul Goodman. Using Freudian and Reichian psychoanalysis, Goodman assesses the philosophical and religious significance of Kafka's aphoristic statements and three novels. He levels an anarchist societal critique against social institutions borne from neuroticism. Goodman used the book, published by Vanguard Press, to grapple with the religious implications of psychoanalysis and transition from a career writing on Jewish concerns to a period that would culminate in his collaboration on the founding work of the gestalt therapy movement.
Many reviewers and commentators felt that Goodman overanalyzed Kafka and overextended specific symbolism, with farfetched or reductive speculation and obscure personal referents. Goodman's monograph was the first on Kafka in the English language and holds an idiosyncratic place in Kafka studies. (Full article...) -
Requiem for a Species: Why We Resist the Truth about Climate Change is a 2010 non-fiction book by Australian academic Clive Hamilton which explores climate change denial and its implications. It argues that climate change will bring about large-scale, harmful consequences for habitability for life on Earth including humans, which it is too late to prevent. Hamilton explores why politicians, corporations and the public deny or refuse to act on this reality. He invokes a variety of explanations, including wishful thinking, ideology, consumer culture and active lobbying by the fossil fuel industry. The book builds on the author's fifteen-year prior history of writing about these subjects, with previous books including Growth Fetish and Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change.
Requiem for a Species has been reviewed in Resurgence magazine, Socialist Review, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Common Review, and Times Higher Education, which named it "Book of the Week". Extracts of the book have appeared in The Guardian and Geographical magazine. The book won a 2010 Queensland Premier's Literary Award. (Full article...) -
Animal Coloration, or in full Animal Coloration: An Account of the Principal Facts and Theories Relating to the Colours and Markings of Animals, is a book by the English zoologist Frank Evers Beddard, published by Swan Sonnenschein in 1892. It formed part of the ongoing debate amongst zoologists about the relevance of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection to the observed appearance, structure, and behaviour of animals, and vice versa.
Beddard states in the book that it contains little that is new, intending instead to give a clear overview of the subject. The main topics covered are camouflage, then called 'protective coloration'; mimicry; and sexual selection. Arguments for and against these aspects of animal coloration are intensively discussed in the book. (Full article...) -
Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle is a natural history book by American conservation biologist Thor Hanson. Published by Basic Books in 2011 and written for general audiences, the book discusses the significance of feathers, their evolution, and their history both in nature and in use by humans.
Feathers is divided into five parts. In "Evolution", Hanson discusses the scientific debate over how feathers evolved, interviewing ornithologists Richard Prum and Alan Feduccia, as well as paleontologist Xing Xu. In "Fluff", Hanson discusses how feathers play a role in regulating a bird's body temperature and how feather insulation has also been utilized by humans. "Flight" discusses how flight might have evolved in birds, interviewing Prum, Feduccia, Xu, and also ornithologist Ken Dial, who described wing-assisted incline running. In "Fancy", Hanson discusses the role of feathers in sexual selection, as well as how humans have utilized feathers for fashion, interviewing costume and fashion designers on the Las Vegas Strip and New York City. "Function" discusses how feathers have been adapted for other purposes, such as waterproofing, fly fishing, and quill pens. (Full article...)
Selected quote
| “ | Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity. | ” |
| — Christopher Morley | ||
Did you know
- ...that Celsus Library was built in 135 A.D. and could house around 12,000 scrolls?(Pictured)
- ...that following the advice of minister Li Si, Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of all philosophy books and history books from states other than Qin — beginning in 213 BC?
- ...that according to the Torah in the fourth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah the prophet Jeremiah dictated the words of the Lord to Baruch, who wrote them in ink upon a roll of a book?
General images
The following are images from various book-related articles on Wikipedia.
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The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) (from History of books) -
Chinese Bookseller, illustration, c. 1824 (from History of books) -
European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books) -
A twentieth-century copyright imprint from McLoughlin Bros that features three rams and the copyright year, 1903 (from History of books) -
A 15th-century Incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books) -
A traditional bookbinder at work (from Bookbinding) -
Book conservators at the State Library of New South Wales, 1943 (from Bookbinding) -
9th-century Qur'an in Reza Abbasi Museum (from Bookbinding) -
A Chinese bamboo book (from History of books) -
Example of blind tooling a book binding with exquisite detail (from Bookbinding) -
Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books) -
Modern paperback spines (from Bookbinding) -
Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books) -
Bookbinder's type holder (from Bookbinding) -
12-metre-high (40 ft) sculpture of a stack of books at the Berlin Walk of Ideas, commemorating the invention of modern book printing (from History of books) -
Dresden Codex (page 49) (from History of books) -
An author portrait of Jean Miélot writing his compilation of the Miracles of Our Lady, one of his many popular works. (from History of books) -
Sammelband of three alchemical treatises, bound in Strasbourg by Samuel Emmel c. 1568, showing metal clasps and leather covering of boards (from Bookbinding) -
A 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 -
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 a book store, it is often the details on the spine that attract the attention first. (from Book design) -
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Marbled book board from a book published in London in 1872 (from Bookbinding) -
Hardbound book spine stitching (from Bookbinding) -
Jikji, 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) -
Folio from a manuscript of the Shanamah (Book of Kings) (from History of books) -
European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books) -
Page from a Jain manuscript depicting the birth of Mahavira, c. 1400 (from History of books) -
European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books) -
Page from the Blue Quran manuscript, ca. 9th or 10th century CE (from History of books) -
Rebacking saving original spine, showing one volume finished and one untouched (from Bookbinding) -
Traditionally sewn book opened flat (from Bookbinding) -
The Codex Manesse, a German book from the Middle Ages (from History of books) -
Modern book spine designs (from Bookbinding)
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The 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) -
Decorative binding with figurehead of the 12th century manuscript Liber Landavensis (from Bookbinding) -
Cloth book cover with attached paper panel, mimicking half leather binding (from Bookbinding) -
Page spread with J. A. van de Graaf's construction of classical text area (print space) and margin proportions (from Book design) -
Three books with different titling orientations:
(left) ascending
(middle) descending
(right) upright (from Bookbinding) -
Scheme 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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Hardbound book with half leather binding (spine and corners) and marbled boards (from Bookbinding) -
Early medieval bookcase containing about ten codices depicted in the Codex Amiatinus (c. 700) (from Bookbinding) -
Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books) -
Design by Hans Holbein the Younger for a metalwork book cover (or treasure binding) (from Book design)
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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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