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The Books Portal

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. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf, and each side of a leaf is called a page. A book produced in electronic format is known as an e-book.Books may also refer to a literature work, or a main division of such a work. In library and information science, a book is called a monograph, to distinguish it from serial periodicalssuch as magazines, journalsor newspapers. The body of all written works including books is literature. More...Show new selections edit

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Make Way for Ducklings is a children's picture book written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey. First published in 1941, the book tells the story of a pair of mallard ducks who decide to raise their family on an island in the lagoon in Boston Public Garden, a park in the center of Boston, Massachusetts.Make Way for Ducklings won the 1942 Caldecott Medal for McCloskey's illustrations, executed in charcoal then lithographed on zinc plates.AS of 2003, the book had sold over two million copies. The book's popularity led to the construction of a statue in the Public Garden of the mother duck and her eight ducklings, which is a popular destination for children and adults alike. The book is also the official children's book of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.Praise for the book is still high over sixty years since its first publication, mainly for the enhancing illustrations and effective pacing. The book is extremely popular worldwide. The city of Boston, where the story is set, as well as Novodevichy Park, Moscow, have both built small statues based on the story.

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The Edwin Smith Papyrusis an Ancient Egyptiantextbook on trauma surgery, written in hieraticaround the 19th century BCE, but thought to be based on material from a thousand years earlier. It is the world's earliest known example of medical literature. edit

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Bookworms-Kitapkolik [1] [2]

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Web resources

IOBA glossary of book terms
Bookbinding and the Conservation of books, A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology, 1982 by Matt T. Roberts and Don Etherington
Words at Large: The best in books from CBC.ca

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In the news

January 1, 2007

Per the ISO, the International Standard Book Number, or ISBN, will expand from its current standard of 10 digits to a new standard of 13 digits beginning January 1, 2007. R. R. Bowker, the official ISBN agency for the United States, is providing an online guide to the "ISBN-13" conversion and its impact on publishers, retailers, and consumers.

January 27, 2006

O'Reilly Media is opening up editing of its books through Safari Books Online, the company's joint venture with the Pearson Technology Group. The company is allowing ordinary people to buy access to manuscripts before they are finalized. Customers are given access to software to that allows them to make notes on the manuscripts, to expose errors, or make suggestions.

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Chinua Achebe , born Albert Chinualumogu Achebe on November 16, 1930, is a Nigerian novelist, poet and critic. He is best known for his first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), which is the most widely-read book in modern African literature.Raised by Christian parents in the Igbo village of Ogidi in south Nigeria, Achebe excelled at school and won a scholarship for undergraduate studies. He became fascinated with world religions and traditional African cultures, and began writing stories as a university student. After graduation, he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service and soon moved to the metropolis of Lagos. He gained worldwide attention for Things Fall Apart in the late 1950s; his later novels include No Longer at Ease (1960), Arrow of God (1964), A Man of the People (1966), and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). Achebe wrote his novels in English and has defended the use of English, a language of colonisers, in African literature. In 1975, his lecture An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" became the focus of controversy, for its criticism of Joseph Conrad as "a thoroughgoing racist".

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“ A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight. ”

—Robertson Davies

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Did you know...

...that the Voynich manuscript is written in an unknown script?(Pictured)
...that the Edwin Smith Papyrusis the world's earliest known example of medical literature?
...that in the movie Futurama: Bender's Big Score, Bender returns to the past and steals the Gutenberg Bible?

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