Book

Basic Information

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side.

In strict terms a book may also be recorded on one or more scrolls, a linked collection of writing tablets or something similar.

A collection of books is termed a library - this can refer both to the books themselves and to the room or building in which they are found, although a library which contains only records may also be called an archive.

Famous Real Books

• Bible
• Book of Shadows
• Codex Gigas
• Handbook of Ritual Power
• The Black Book
• Voynich manuscript

Famous Fictional Books

• Necronomicon

See Also

• Anthropodermic bibliopegy
• Big Book Of War
• Book And Switch
• Bookcase Passage
• Book code
• Chirograph
• Cookbook
• Hagiography
• Hortus Siccus
• It's For A Book
• Library
• Library of Lost Books
• Palimpsest
• Read The Freaking Manual
• Religious Text
• Scribe
• Spell Book
• Tome of Eldritch Lore

• News: British Library mislays 9,000 books
• News: Ancient Egyptian Handbook of Spells Deciphered

Sources

Bibliography

1. The Most Unusual Books of the World

2. Wikipedia entry

Game and Story Use

• Books serve as a useful repository of plot-relevant information.
  • Most famously is the Tome of Eldritch Lore which contains the banishing spell for the Cosmic Horror - but which might drive the reader insane in the process.
• As the "Unusual Books" link demonstrates, books can be far more than a mere collection of sheets of paper. Come up with an unusual book description, and make your players curious.