Books

Kids And Young Adults Don't Read Books for Fun — They've Got Smartphones

Three times as many kids as in the 1980s just don't read books

A page from Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau

This 300 Year Old Book Is a Guide to Every Paint Color Imaginable

Browse through color swatches from the 17th Century

Santa Barbara Church, built in the late 16th century.

Mompox Does Exist: A Town Captured by Garcia Marquez Isn't Just a Dream

Once a center of commerce, Mompox is now an isolated city in Colombia

On These Book Tours, the Author Acts as a Tour Guide

Authors are literally bringing their readers along for the journey, by leading tours of places their books are set

Monument to Cervantes in Madrid

Spain Begins to Search for Cervantes’ Bones

Experts use ground-penetrating radar to search for the author’s bones

Voynich Manuscript

Is One of the Weirdest Books on the Planet Actually a Hoax?

This small book has puzzled scholars for decades and remains a mystery

Kids Get Confused by Anthropomorphized Animals in Storybooks

This doesn't mean we should stop reading them those books, however

The protagonist, Tris (Shailene Woodley), and her friend Christina (Zoë Kravitz) jump from a train running through post-apocalyptic Chicago in a scene from the film Divergent.

We Asked Four Teenagers to Explain "Divergent" to Old People

The first movie in the dystopian young adult book trilogy comes out this weekend. Get ready

These Apps Could Triple Your Reading Speed

They show you words one-by-one, at incredible speeds—up to 1,000 words per minute

Anne Frank at Merwedeplein in Amsterdam

After Tokyo Libraries' Anne Frank Books Were Defaced, Israel Offered to Replace Them

At least 300 books about the young Jewish girl who was killed in the Holocaust, including her famous diary, were vandalized in Tokyo libraries.

A Team of Developers Wants to Print Out Wikipedia—All 1,000 Books Of It

A crowdfunding campaign seeks to make a print copy of the online encyclopedia

Text Me, Ishmael: Reading Moby Dick in Emoji

Why someone would translate Herman Melville’s classic into emoticons

How Did Computers Uncover J.K. Rowling’s Pseudonym?

Forensic linguistics can use powerful programs to track written text back to its author

A painting by one of Darwin's children, found on the back of one of the manuscript pages of "On the Origin of Species."

See the Doodles Darwin’s Children Made in His “On the Origin of Species” Manuscript

While Darwin contemplated speciation and evolution, his kids envisioned battling vegetables and tropical birds

It's your birthday, eat all the honey you want.

Happy Birthday Winnie-the-Pooh

Winnie-the-Pooh's entrance wasn’t loud or flashy, much like the bear himself it was simple and sweet: a short poem in a little magazine

A gondola, piled high with books, sits in the middle of the shop.

Why Does This Bookstore Keep Its Books in Bathtubs?

Venice's Libreria Acqua Alta keeps its books in bathtubs, gondolas and canoes—and not just for show

A Tiny Scrap of Paper Offers a Glimpse Into Jane Austen's Inspiration

The small scrap of paper transcribes part of a sermon, the theme of which Austen later explored in "Mansfield Park"

Mr. Garrick and Miss Bellamy in the characters of Romeo and Juliet

Old Illustrations Tell the Secret of How They Were Made

Old books are full of beautiful, intricate engravings. But without expertise in printmaking, how can you tell how those images were made?

Image: Denise Krebs

Readability Scores on Kids' Books Are Bogus

Most books come with an indication of how hard they are, and those estimates are mostly wrong

A Book's Vocabulary Is Different If It Was Written During Hard Economic Times

Books published just after recessions have higher levels of literary misery, a new study finds

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