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13 Things 2009

13 Things 2008


Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology

Search Brown

 

 

Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]

The Oxford English Dictionary has 20 definitions of "book."

This one was the most applicable:

3. gen. A written or printed treatise or series of treatises, occupying several sheets of paper or other substance fastened together so as to compose a material whole.

a. spec. (In reference to modern things.) Such a treatise occupying numerous sheets or leaves fastened together at one edge called the back, so as to be opened at any particular place, the whole being protected by binding or covers of some kind. But, since either the form of the book or its subject may be mainly or exclusively the object of attention, this passes on either side into

b. The material article so made up, without regard to the nature of its contents, even though its pages are occupied otherwise than with writing or printing, or are entirely blank (cf. 10): e.g. ‘a handsome book’, i.e. a trophy of the binder's art, ‘a tiny book,’ one that may be put in the waistcoat pocket.

c. A literary composition such as would occupy one or more volumes, without regard to the material form or forms in which it actually exists; ‘an intellectual composition, in prose or verse, at least of sufficient extent to make one volume’ (Littré s.v. livre). In this sense Carlyle described himself as ‘a writer of books’.


As you peruse the wiki, keep in mind these contrasting definitions of the book, and whether it is defined at the material that it is, or the ideas contained within it.


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