Book vs. Novel

Main Difference

The main difference between Book and Novel is that the Book is a medium for a collection of words and/or pictures to represent knowledge or a fictional story, often manifested in bound paper and ink, or in e-books and Novel is a narrative text, normally of a substantial length and in the form of prose describing a fictional and sequential story

• Book

  As a physical object, a book is a stack of usually rectangular pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) oriented with one edge tied, sewn, or otherwise fixed together and then bound to the flexible spine of a protective cover of heavier, relatively inflexible material. The technical term for this physical arrangement is codex (in the plural, codices). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its immediate predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf, and each side of a leaf is a page.

  As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and a still considerable, though not so extensive, investment of time to read. This sense of book has a restricted and an unrestricted sense. In the restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage that reflects the fact that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls, and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. So, for instance, each part of Aristotle’s Physics is called a book, as of course, the Bible encompasses many different books. In the unrestricted sense, a book is the compositional whole of which such sections, whether called books or chapters or parts, are parts.

  The intellectual content in a physical book need not be a composition, nor even be called a book. Books can consist only of drawings, engravings, or photographs, or such things as crossword puzzles or cut-out dolls. In a physical book, the pages can be left blank or can feature an abstract set of lines as support for on-going entries, i.e., an account book, an appointment book, a log book, an autograph book, a notebook, a diary or day book, or a sketchbook. Some physical books are made with pages thick and sturdy enough to support other physical objects, like a scrapbook or photograph album. Books may be distributed in electronic form as e-books and other formats.

  Although in ordinary academic parlance a monograph is understood to be a specialist academic work, rather than a reference work on a single scholarly subject, in library and information science monograph denotes more broadly any non-serial publication complete in one volume (book) or a finite number of volumes (even a novel like Proust’s seven-volume In Search of Lost Time), in contrast to serial publications like a magazine, journal, or newspaper. An avid reader or collector of books or a book lover is a bibliophile or colloquially, “bookworm”. A shop where books are bought and sold is a bookshop or bookstore. Books are also sold elsewhere. Books can also be borrowed from libraries. Google has estimated that as of 2010, approximately 130,000,000 distinct titles had been published. In some wealthier nations, the sale of printed books has decreased because of the increased usage of e-books.

• Novel

  A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, normally written in prose form, and which is typically published as a book.

  The entire genre has been seen as having “a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years”, with its origins in classical Greece and Rome, in medieval and early modern romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella. (Since the 18th century, the term “novella”, or “novelle” in German, has been used in English and other European languages to describe a long short story or a short novel.)

  Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji, an early 11th-century Japanese text, has sometimes been described as the world’s first novel, but there is considerable debate over this — there were certainly long fictional works much earlier. Spread of printed books in China led to the appearance of classical Chinese novels by the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Parallel European developments occurred after the invention of the printing press. Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote (the first part of which was published in 1605), is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era. Ian Watt, in The Rise of the Novel (1957), suggested that the modern novel was born in the early 18th century.

  Walter Scott made a distinction between the novel, in which (as he saw it) “events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society” and the romance, which he defined as “a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents”. However, many such romances, including the historical romances of Scott, Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, are also frequently called novels, and Scott describes romance as a “kindred term”. This sort of romance is in turn different from the genre fiction love romance or romance novel. Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: “a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo, en roman.”

• Book (noun)

  a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers

  “a book of selected poems”

• Book (noun)

  a literary composition that is published or intended for publication as a book

  “he’s writing a book about his experiences”

• Book (noun)

  a main division of a literary work or of the Bible

  “the Book of Genesis”

• Book (noun)

  the libretto of a musical or opera, or the script of a play.

• Book (noun)

  used to refer to studying

  “he was so deep in his books he would forget to eat”

• Book (noun)

  the telephone directory for the area in which someone lives

  “is your name in the book?”

• Book (noun)

  a magazine

  “Charlotte’s mother always called magazines ‘books’”

  “women’s books like Cosmopolitan and Ladies’ Home Journal”

• Book (noun)

  an imaginary record or list (often used to emphasize the comprehensiveness of someone’s actions or experience)

  “she felt every emotion in the book of love”

• Book (noun)

  a bound set of blank sheets for writing in

  “an accounts book”

• Book (noun)

  a set of records or accounts

  “a bid to balance the books”

• Book (noun)

  a bookmaker’s record of bets accepted and money paid out.

• Book (noun)

  the notebook in which a referee writes the names of players who are cautioned for foul play

  “his name went into the book for a foul on Smyth”

• Book (noun)

  the first six tricks taken by the declarer in a hand of bridge, after which further tricks count towards fulfilling the contract.

• Book (noun)

  a set of tickets, stamps, matches, samples of cloth, etc., bound together

  “a pattern book”

• Book (verb)

  reserve (accommodation, a place, etc.); buy (a ticket) in advance

  “book early to avoid disappointment”

  “I have booked a table at the Swan”

• Book (verb)

  reserve accommodation for (someone)

  “his secretary had booked him into the Howard Hotel”

  “book me a single room at my usual hotel”

• Book (verb)

  register one’s arrival at a hotel

  “he booked in at a hotel”

• Book (verb)

  engage (a performer or guest) for an event

  “the promoter booked him for another appearance”

• Book (verb)

  have all places reserved; be full

  “at weekends we’re usually booked up”

• Book (verb)

  make an official note of the personal details of (a person who has broken a law or rule)

  “the cop booked me and took me down to the station”

• Book (verb)

  (of a referee) note down the name of (a player) who is cautioned for foul play

  “McMahon was booked for a foul”

• Book (verb)

  leave suddenly

  “they just ate your pizza and drank your soda and booked”

• Book (verb)

  move quickly; hurry

  “I didn’t hear the verdict because I had to book it to work”

  “my sister and I booked to the playground”