Although in ordinary academic parlance a monograph is understood to be a specialist academic work, rather than a reference work on a single scholarly subjectn 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.
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.But the intellectual content in a physical book need not be a composition, or can 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 sketch book. 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.
