Book formats

thumb|Reading an e-book (A Dance with Dragons) on a third-generation Kindle

An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements.

thumb|upright=1.2|A blank paperback book thumb|upright=1.2|Glued binding

right|thumbnail|200px|A typical hardcover book (1899), showing the wear signs of a cloth A hardcover, hard cover, or hardback (also known as hardbound, and sometimes as casebound) book is one bound with rigid protective covers (typically of binder's board or heavy paperboard covered with buckram or other cloth, heavy paper, or occasionally leather). It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened. Modern hardcovers may have the pages glued onto the spine in much the same way as paperbacks. Following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be i

thumb|An assortment of bunkobon in a bookshop In Japan, are small-format paperback books, designed to be affordable and space-saving.

thumb|upright=1|The title-page of the Shakespeare First Folio, 1623 thumb|Single folio from a large Qur'an, North Africa, 8th c. (Khalili Collection)

thumb|Octavo metrics compared to the folio and quarto

thumb|right|Title page of the first quarto edition of Shakespeare's ''Midsummer Night's Dream'', 1600, from the [[Folger Shakespeare Library]] thumb|Quarto metrics compared to the folio and octavo Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produce eight book pages. Each printed page presents as one-fourth size of the full sheet.

thumbnail|Chapbook (c. 1800) of Jack the Giant Killer A chapbook is a type of small printed booklet that was a popular medium for street literature throughout early modern Europe. Chapbooks were usually produced cheaply, illustrated with crude woodcuts and printed on a single sheet folded into 8, 12, 16, or 24 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. Printers provided chapbooks on credit to chapmen, who sold them both from door to door and at markets and fairs, then paying for the stock they sold. The tradition of chapbooks emerged during the 16th century as printed books were becoming aff