Lee Bontecou was an American artist whose work ranged from dark, dramatic abstract constructions to softer, transparent natural forms, evoking a correspondingly broad range of response. Bontecou studied art at Bradford Junior College (now Bradford College) in Massachusetts through 1952 and in New

Massimo Bontempelli was an Italian poet, novelist, dramatist, and critic whose “magic realism” developed from Futurism. First a teacher, Bontempelli wrote some traditional poetry, later adopted the antitraditional, anarchic literary doctrine of the Futurists, and ultimately developed his own point

Arna Bontemps was an American writer who depicted the lives and struggles of black Americans. After graduating from Pacific Union College, Angwin, California, in 1923, Bontemps taught in New York and elsewhere. His poetry began to appear in the influential black magazines Opportunity and Crisis in

Arna Bontemps was an American writer who depicted the lives and struggles of black Americans. After graduating from Pacific Union College, Angwin, California, in 1923, Bontemps taught in New York and elsewhere. His poetry began to appear in the influential black magazines Opportunity and Crisis in

Bonthe, Atlantic seaport, southwestern Sierra Leone. It lies on the eastern shore of Sherbro Island, on the Sherbro River estuary. A 19th-century British control post against the slave trade, it was settled by freed African slaves and grew as a shipping port for agricultural products. Its harbour

Bonus Army, gathering of probably 10,000 to 25,000 World War I veterans (estimates vary widely) who, with their wives and children, converged on Washington, D.C., in 1932, demanding immediate bonus payment for wartime services to alleviate the economic hardship of the Great Depression. Adjusted

Bonvesin Da La Riva was an Italian teacher, moralist, and poet, whose most important work, the vernacular poetry of Libro delle tre scritture (1274; “Book of the Three Writings”), described in three sections the pains of hell, the joys of heaven, and the Passion. A member of the Humiliati

skua: …also known in Britain as skuas are called jaegers in the United States (see jaeger). All belong to the family Stercorariidae (order Charadriiformes).

bony fish, (superclass Osteichthyes), any member of the superclass Osteichthyes, a group made up of the classes Sarcopterygii (lobe-finned fishes) and Actinopterygii (ray-finned fishes) in the subphylum Vertebrata, including the great majority of living fishes and virtually all the world’s sport

inner ear: The bony labyrinth, a cavity in the temporal bone, is divided into three sections: the vestibule, the semicircular canals, and the cochlea. Within the bony labyrinth is a membranous labyrinth, which is also divided into three parts: the semicircular ducts; two saclike structures, the saccule and…

pelvis, in human anatomy, basin-shaped complex of bones that connects the trunk and the legs, supports and balances the trunk, and contains and supports the intestines, the urinary bladder, and the internal sex organs. The pelvis consists of paired hipbones, connected in front at the pubic

dinosaur: Stegosauria: …double row of large diamond-shaped bony plates on the back. A controversy as to their purpose and how they were arranged has raged ever since the first Stegosaurus specimen was collected (1877, Colorado, U.S.). The evidence and a general consensus argue in favour of the traditional idea that the plates…

bony tongue, any of several heavy-bodied tropical river fishes, family Osteoglossidae, covered with large, hard, mosaic-like scales except on the head. The largest member of the family, the arapaima, paiche, or pirarucu (Arapaima gigas) of South America, may be about 2.4 metres (8 feet) long and

Tolna: The enamelware produced in Bonyhád is known worldwide.

Joan Sutherland: Her accompanist and vocal coach, Richard Bonynge, who had worked with her in Sydney, was convinced that her future lay in the florid coloratura repertoire even though Covent Garden was training her as a dramatic Wagnerian soprano. In 1954 she married Bonynge, and with his help and encouragement she began…

M’banza Congo, city, northwestern Angola. It is situated on a low plateau about 100 miles (160 km) southeast of Nóqui, which is the nearest point on the Congo River. Originally known as Mbanza Kongo, it was the capital of the Kongo kingdom from about 1390 until 1914, when the kingdom was broken up

Death Cab for Cutie: …1960s psychedelic rock group the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

Death Cab for Cutie: …1960s psychedelic rock group the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

boobook, (Ninox novaeseelandiae), small owl species classified with elf owls, hawk owls, and burrowing owls in the subfamily Surniinae. The boobook is common in various habitats throughout Australia, New Zealand, the Lesser Sunda Islands, and the islands of Timor and New Guinea. However, it is

booby, any of six or seven species of large tropical seabirds constituting the family Sulidae (order Pelecaniformes or Suliformes). They vary in length from about 65 to 85 cm (25–35 inches). The red-footed booby (Sula sula) and the masked, or blue-faced, booby (S. dactylatra) are wide-ranging in

bongo, (Tragelaphus eurycerus), the largest, most colourful, and most sociable of the African forest antelopes, belonging to the spiral-horned antelope tribe Tragelaphini (family Bovidae). It is also the third heaviest antelope, after the related giant eland and common eland. The bongo has short,

dictionary: From 1604 to 1828: …medical work by Oswald Gabelkhouer, The Boock of Physicke, published at Dort, in the Netherlands. As he had been away from England for many years and had forgotten much of his English, A.M. sometimes merely put English endings on Latin words. When friends told him that Englishmen would not understand…

rat kangaroo: … rat kangaroo, or boodie (B. lesueur), which has a thicker, non-crested tail, is the only member of the kangaroo group to dig burrows. It was formerly widespread in South and Western Australia but is today restricted to a few offshore islands. The Northern bettong (B. tropica) has pale gray…

bogeyman, any of a variety of fictional and oftentimes folkloric monsters described in stories designed to frighten children. Tales of the bogeyman and various analogues have been used for centuries all across the world to influence children to behave as their parents command and to exercise

Paul Thomas Anderson: Hard Eight and Boogie Nights: …praised, Anderson’s breakout effort was Boogie Nights (1997). Starring Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, and Mark Wahlberg—as well as benefiting from scene-stealing performances by Hall, Reilly, and Hoffman—Boogie Nights traces the rise, fall, and resurgence of an adult film star. The story earned Anderson his first Academy Award nomination for best…

Stevie Wonder: …Worry ’Bout a Thing,” “Boogie On Reggae Woman,” “I Wish,” and “Sir Duke.”

the Andrews Sisters: …the Andrews’ 1941 hit “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” was

boogie-woogie, heavily percussive style of blues piano in which the right hand plays riffs (syncopated, repeating phrases) against a driving pattern of repeating eighth notes (ostinato bass). It began to appear at the beginning of the 20th century and was associated with the southwestern

bogeyman, any of a variety of fictional and oftentimes folkloric monsters described in stories designed to frighten children. Tales of the bogeyman and various analogues have been used for centuries all across the world to influence children to behave as their parents command and to exercise

Boojum, fictional creature in The Hunting of the Snark (1876), a narrative nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll. In the poem, the elusive Snark turns out to be a mysterious monster called a

boojum tree, (Fouquieria columnaris), unusual flowering tree (family Fouquieriaceae) endemic to the deserts of Baja California and a small area of Sonora, Mexico. Fancifully, it resembles a slender upside-down carrot, up to 15 metres (50 feet) tall and covered with spiny twigs that bear yellowish

book, published work of literature or scholarship; the term has been defined by UNESCO for statistical purposes as a “non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages excluding covers,” but no strict definition satisfactorily covers the variety of publications so identified. Although the

mica: Origin and occurrence: …large crystals are often called books; these may measure up to several metres across. In most rocks, micas occur as irregular tabular masses or thin plates (flakes), which in some instances appear bent. Although some mica grains are extremely small, all except those constituting sericitic masses have characteristic shiny cleavage…

Toni Morrison: Nonfiction works and children’s books: …the Who’s Got Game? series, The Book of Mean People (2002), and Please, Louise (2014).

Iris Murdoch: … (1983), The Good Apprentice (1985), The Book and the Brotherhood (1987), The Message to the Planet (1989), and The Green Knight (1993). Murdoch’s last novel, Jackson’s Dilemma (1995), was not well received; some critics attributed the novel’s flaws to the Alzheimer’s disease with which she had been diagnosed in 1994.…

book banning, the practice of prohibiting or restricting the reading of certain books by the general public or by members of a local community or religious group. Books can be banned by means of their removal from publicly accessible locations (e.g, libraries), by their destruction (including the

The American Library Association (ALA) has annually tracked book challenges—attempts to remove or restrict materials—since 1990. From 2021 to 2022, attempts to ban books had more than doubled from 602 attempts to ban 1,858 unique titles to 1,031 attempts to ban 2,571 unique titles in schools and

library: Vehicles for catalogs: …the same form as the books they listed; being made of the same material, the catalog was an extra item of the collection itself. The earliest catalogs of the great national and scholarly libraries were in book form, with handwritten entries and spaces for new additions. The main problem of…

Book Cliffs, geological feature of east-central Utah and western Colorado, U.S. Beginning near Helper, Utah, and joined at Green River, Utah, by a second escarpment, the Roan Cliffs, the 2,000-foot- (610-metre-) tall mountain wall, winds a 250-mile (400-km) course along the Tavaputs and Roan

Candice Bergen: …Mary Steenburgen in the well-received Book Club (2018) and won plaudits for her performance in Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk (2020), in which she starred with Meryl Streep and Dianne Wiest.

book club, marketing service whereby potential book buyers subscribe to free periodicals describing available books, which are sold by order or by “negative option” (see below) and then distributed by mail. The first book club, established in Germany (1919), reprinted and distributed classics. In

Jane Fonda: …Shades of Grey; a sequel, Book Club: The Next Chapter, appeared in 2023. In the sports comedy 80 for Brady, Fonda costarred with Tomlin, Sally Field, and Rita Moreno as fans of the New England Patriots. In 2021 Fonda was given the Cecil B. DeMille Award (a Golden Globe for…

book collecting, acquisition of books, not only as texts but also as objects desirable for such qualities as their age, scarcity, historical significance, value, beauty, and evidence of association with some important person. Exercising knowledge, taste, and critical judgment, the book collector

slave narrative: …the manner of Norvel Blair’s Book for the People…Life of Norvel Blair, of Grundy County, State of Illinois, Written and Published by Him (1880).

circulatory system: Arthropoda: …Limulus, has a series of book gills (gills arranged in membranous folds) on either side of the body into which blood from the ventral sinus passes for oxygenation prior to return to the heart. The largely terrestrial arachnids may have book lungs that occupy a similar position in the circulatory…

calligraphy: Origins to the 8th century ce: …of handwriting is that between book hands and documentary hands. The former, used especially for the copying of literature, aimed at clarity, regularity, and impersonality and often made an effect of beauty by their deliberate stylization. Usually they were the work of professionals. Outstanding calligraphy is not common among papyrus…

Pierre Bonnard: A new phase in book illustration was inaugurated with Bonnard’s decoration of the pages in Paul Verlaine’s book of Symbolist poetry, Parallèlement, published by Vollard in 1900. He undertook the illustration of other books during the 1900s.

Bokmål, a literary form of Norwegian developed by the gradual reform of written Danish in conformity to Norwegian usage. Bokmål means in Norwegian “book language” and Riksmål approximately “official language” (meaning literally, “language of the

insect: Annotated classification: Order Psocoptera (booklice or psocids) Small or minute insects with long filiform antennae, delicate membranous wings (though many are wingless), head with Y-shaped epicranial suture, enlarged post-clypeus (sclerite on the face); maxilla with a rodlike lacinia (inner lobe) partly sunk into head capsule; labial palps much reduced;…

book lung, form of respiratory organ found in certain air-breathing arachnid arthropods (scorpions and most spiders). Each book lung consists of a series of thin plates that are highly vascular (i.e., richly supplied with hemolymph) and are arranged in relation to each other like the pages of a

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Scriptures: …he declared to be the Book of Abraham, were incorporated into the Pearl of Great Price. The Doctrines and Covenants contains Smith’s ongoing revelations through 1844. The editions of the Utah church and of the Community of Christ add the revelations of their respective church presidents (who, like Smith, are…

mathematics: Mathematics in the 9th century: …book explaining Hindu arithmetic, the Book of Addition and Subtraction According to the Hindu Calculation. In another work, the Book of Restoring and Balancing, he provided a systematic introduction to algebra, including a theory of quadratic equations. Both works had important consequences for Islamic mathematics. Hindu Calculation began a tradition…

floral decoration: 17th century: …de fleurs d’après nature (Book of All Kinds of Flowers from Nature) accurately portray flowers from a horticultural standpoint and at the same time show prototypes of display. These floral arrangements are freer and more airy than those of the Low Countries and yet suggest Baroque opulence. Flora ouerocultura…

Stephen Vincent Benét: A Book of Americans (1933)—a collection of poems Benét wrote with his wife, Rosemary—brought many historical characters to life for American schoolchildren. His preoccupation with historical themes was also the basis for Western Star, an ambitious epic verse narrative on American history that Benét first…

Aneirin: …in a manuscript known as The Book of Aneirin, which dates from about 1265. The language of the poem is direct for the most part, although simile and metaphor are skillfully used, and alliteration and internal rhyme abound. The poem praises the courage and prowess of Aneirin’s contemporaries in the…

James Gibbs: His major written work, A Book of Architecture (1728), was the most widely used architectural pattern book in Britain and its colonies during the 18th century.

alphabet: Runic and ogham alphabets: …the Middle Ages; the 14th-century Book of Ballymote reproduces the earliest keys for translation. In many cases the ogham inscriptions run upward.

A.J.M. Smith: …series of anthologies beginning with The Book of Canadian Poetry (1943), Smith approached Canadian literature in a scholarly manner that set the tone for modern Canadian criticism. Later anthologies include The Blasted Pine (1957; rev. ed. 1967), edited with F.R. Scott, a collection of Canadian satiric and invective verse; and…

Judaism: Major medieval Hebrew collections: …of the most important were The Book of Comfort by Nissim ben Jacob ben Nissim of Al-Qayrawān (11th century) and The Book of Delight by Joseph ben Meir ibn Zabara of Spain (end of the 12th century). The former, composed in Judeo-Arabic, is a collection of some 60 moralizing tales…

Book of Common Order, first Reformed manual of worship in English, introduced to the English congregation in Geneva by John Knox in 1556, adopted by the Scottish Reformers in 1562, and revised in 1564. The norm of public worship followed in the book is the ancient service of word and sacrament. A

Book of Common Prayer, liturgical book used by churches of the Anglican Communion. First authorized for use in the Church of England in 1549, it was radically revised in 1552, with subsequent minor revisions in 1559, 1604, and 1662. The prayer book of 1662, with minor changes, has continued as the

Joan Didion: Play It as It Lays and other novels: A Book of Common Prayer (1977) centers on two American women living in the fictional Central American country of Boca Grande. Set in the 1970s, Democracy (1984) features a protagonist whose father is a murderer and husband is a senator and failed presidential candidate.

etiquette: …published her own typically practical Book of Common Sense Etiquette (1962).

David Kimhi: His own great work, the Sefer mikhlol (“Book of Completeness”), was originally intended to comprise a grammar and a lexicon of the Hebrew language. The latter, however, appeared as a separate work, Sefer ha-shorashim (“Book of the Roots”). (The grammar, edited and translated by William Chomsky, was published in 1933;…

Book of Concord, collected doctrinal standards of Lutheranism in Germany, published in German (June 25, 1580) and in Latin (1584). Its publication concluded a 30-year effort to heal the divisions that had broken out in the Lutheran movement after Martin Luther’s death and to keep the Lutheran

short story: Spreading popularity: …Manuel’s collection of lively exempla Libro de los enxiemplos del conde Lucanor et de Patronio (1328–35), which antedates the Decameron; the anonymous story “The Abencerraje,” which was interpolated into a pastoral novel of 1559; and, most importantly, Miguel de Cervantes’ experimental Novelas ejemplares (1613; “Exemplary Novels”). Cervantes’ short fictions vary…

Giovanni Della Casa: …etiquette manual, Baldassare Castiglione’s Il cortegiano (“The Courtier”), in being more concerned with the details of correct behaviour in polite society than with courtly etiquette. Like Il cortegiano, Della Casa’s manual became widely read throughout Europe.

E.L. Doctorow: …history first became apparent in The Book of Daniel (1971; film 1983), a fictionalized treatment of the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage in 1953. In Ragtime (1975; film 1981), historical figures share the spotlight with characters emblematic of the shifting social dynamics of early 20th-century America.

Patti Smith: Smith later published A Book of Days (2022), which was inspired by her Instagram account. In 2016 she accepted Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize for Literature on his behalf.

Turkish literature: Epic and the emergence of the âşik: The Book of Dede Korkut), which has survived in two 16th-century manuscripts. The actual date of the work is unknown. At least one of the tales was already circulating in written form in the early 14th century, and Central Asian sources suggest that the shaman-bard…

Judaism: Major medieval Hebrew collections: …of Al-Qayrawān (11th century) and The Book of Delight by Joseph ben Meir ibn Zabara of Spain (end of the 12th century). The former, composed in Judeo-Arabic, is a collection of some 60 moralizing tales designed to comfort the author’s father-in-law on the loss of a son. Belonging to a…

Fernando Pessoa: …of Livro do desassossego (The Book of Disquiet), a diary-like work of poetic fragments that Pessoa worked on through the last two decades of his life and that remained unfinished at his death. It was published together for the first time in 1982 and brought him worldwide attention; a…

Meister Eckhart: …of his life is the Book of Divine Consolation, dedicated to the Queen of Hungary. The other two treatises were The Nobleman and On Detachment. The teachings of the mature Eckhart describe four stages of the union between the soul and God: dissimilarity, similarity, identity, breakthrough. At the outset, God…

Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust series: …three planned installments in his The Book of Dust series. It continues the story of Lyra, chronicling her life both before and after His Dark Materials. However, rather than describing it as a prequel or sequel, Pullman claimed that The Book of Dust trilogy is an “equel.” The second book…

Denzel Washington: Later movies: The Book of Eli, Flight, and Roman J. Israel, Esq.: …in the postapocalyptic action drama The Book of Eli and collaborated again with Scott on the action thriller Unstoppable. He subsequently portrayed a rogue CIA agent in South Africa in the spy thriller Safe House (2012) before giving an Oscar-nominated performance in Flight (2012) as a heroic airplane pilot hiding…

John Banville: Fiction: The Book of Evidence (1989) is a murder mystery and the first of a trilogy centered on the character Freddie Montgomery. Ghosts (1993) and Athena (1995) completed the trilogy. The Untouchable (1997), along with Eclipse (2000) and its sequel, Shroud (2002), are novels that tell…

Jeremy Bentham: Mature works: …John Stuart Mill and the Book of Fallacies (1824) by Peregrine Bingham. The services of Étienne Dumont in recasting as well as translating the works of Bentham were still more important.

Miyamoto Musashi: …on strategy—Gorin no sho (The Book of Five Rings), which dealt with the martial experience both individually and militarily—on his deathbed. Following its first English translation in 1974, the book was seriously studied by executives in the West in order to better understand Japanese management techniques and strategies.

Andromeda Galaxy: …as 965 ce, in the Book of the Fixed Stars by the Islamic astronomer al-Ṣūfī, and rediscovered in 1612, shortly after the invention of the telescope, by the German astronomer Simon Marius, who said it resembled the light of a candle seen through a horn. For centuries astronomers regarded the…

Anne Sexton: Poems (1969), Transformations (1971), The Book of Folly (1972), and The Death Notebooks (1974).

Valley of the Kings: In the “Book of Gates,” giant serpents guard the portals through which the sun has to pass as strange demons help or hinder the boat on its way. Other funerary compositions include the “Book of Day” and the “Book of Night,” which depict Nut, the sky-goddess, spread…

R. Crumb: In October 2009 Crumb released The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb. The work, begun in 2004, was originally intended as a parody of the first book of the Bible. However, as Crumb delved deeper into the source material, he decided to adhere to the literal text to create…

Gabriel Josipovici: …The Mirror of Criticism (1983), The Book of God (1988), and Text and Voice (1992). His novels grew progressively experimental. The first three—The Inventory (1968), Words (1971), and The Present (1975)—were written mostly in dialogue, whereas Migrations (1977) and The Air We

Juan Ruiz: …amor (1330; expanded in 1343; The Book of Good Love) is perhaps the most important long poem in the literature of medieval Spain.

Niẓām al-Mulk: The Seyāsat-nāmeh: Shortly before his assassination and at Malik-Shāh’s request, Niẓām al-Mulk wrote down his views on government in the Seyāsat-nāmeh. In this remarkable work, he barely refers to the organization of the dewan (administration) because he had been able, with the help of his well-chosen…

Suzan-Lori Parks: …Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter; and The Book of Grace (produced 2010), a biblically inflected examination of the familial relations of a racist patriarch. In 2006–07 Parks oversaw a project that coordinated performances across the United States of the plays she had written one per day over the course of a…

Hillary Clinton: Later activities: …(with her daughter, Chelsea Clinton) The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience (2019). In 2021 she turned to fiction writing with State of Terror, a collaboration with Canadian mystery writer Louise Penny. The geopolitical thriller centers on a female secretary of state who races to stop…

Sarah Silverman: …film credits included the thriller The Book of Henry (2017) and the biopic Battle of the Sexes (2017), which recounts the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.

Nestorius: Life and career: …his exile, he wrote the Book of Heraclides of Damascus, which he intended as a defense of his teaching and a history of his life. The sole treatise from his pen to have survived, it was discovered in 1895 in a Syriac translation. Nestorius died in Panopolis about 451, protesting…

Jean Fouquet: …most famous works: a large Book of Hours with about 60 full-page miniatures, 40 of which are among the great treasures of the château of Chantilly; and the diptych from Notre Dame at Melun (c. 1450) with Chevalier’s portrait (Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin) on one panel and a Madonna…

Kevin Young: Poetry collections: In Book of Hours (2014), he returns to his father’s death, this time exploring grief alongside the joy brought by the birth of Young’s son. In “Charity,” Young writes about the poignant ritual of sorting through a deceased parent’s clothes—“the unworn, / unwashed wreckage / of…

graphic design: Renaissance book design: In his Book of Hours (1531), he framed columns of roman type with modular borders; these exuberant forms were a perfect complement to his illustrations.

book of hours, devotional book widely popular in the later Middle Ages. The book of hours began to appear in the 13th century, containing prayers to be said at the canonical hours in honour of the Virgin Mary. The growing demand for smaller such books for family and individual use created a

Diane di Prima: [1974]), Earthsong: Poems 1957–59 (1968), The Book of Hours (1970), Loba, Parts 1–8 (1978), Pieces of a Song (1990), and 22 Death Poems (1996). She also wrote Dinners and Nightmares (1961; rev. ed., 1974), a book of short stories; a number of plays (collected in Zipcode [1992]); and several autobiographical…

Hishām ibn al-Kalbī: …Arabs; and Kitāb al-aṣnām (The Book of Idols), in which he discusses the gods of the pre-Islamic Arabs. The discussions in Kitāb al-aṣnām are supplemented by relevant excerpts from pre-Islamic poetry. His writings are of particular importance for having preserved valuable information on Arabian antiquities and tribal customs and…

Paul Auster: The Book of Illusions (2002) traces a writer’s immersion in the oeuvre of an obscure silent film star as he copes with his grief at the deaths of his wife and children in a plane crash. Travels in the Scriptorium (2007) centres on an unidentified…

Jorge Luis Borges: Life: …de los seres imaginarios (1967; The Book of Imaginary Beings), almost erase the distinctions between the genres of prose and poetry. His later collections of stories include El informe de Brodie (1970; Doctor Brodie’s Report), which deals with revenge, murder, and horror, and El libro de arena (1975; The Book…

Tuatha Dé Danann: The Leabhar Gabhála (Book of Invasions), a fictitious history of Ireland from the earliest times, treats them as actual people, and they were so regarded by native historians up to the 17th century. In popular legend they have become associated with the numerous fairies still supposed to inhabit…

Harold Bloom: …appeared in his commentary on The Book of J (1990), published with David Rosenberg’s translations of selected sections of the Pentateuch. In it Bloom speculated that the earliest known texts of the Bible were written by a woman who lived during the time of David and Solomon and that the…

Russell Banks: …shaped two of his novels, The Book of Jamaica (1980) and Continental Drift (1985), the latter being generally considered his best work.