What's the difference between a novel and a book?

Question

A novel is suppose to be much longer right?

Answer 1

A book is just a written work or composition that has been published. A novel is an extended fictional work usually in the form of a story.

Answer 2

nov·el [nóvv’l]
(plural nov·els)
n
1. long story: a fictional prose work with a relatively long and often complex plot, usually divided into chapters, in which the story traditionally develops through the thoughts and actions of its characters

no·vel·la [nō véllə]
(plural no·vel·las)
n
1. short novel: a fictional prose work that is longer than a short story but shorter than a novel


Technically, a novel is a book. However, the term novella may be the answer on the fictional side. As the above definition says, a novella is longer than a short story but shorter than a novel. Novella's should be about 60 to 130 pages or so. So as a work of fiction, anything less than a novella in size is a book and anything more is a novel.

Then you have the fact that a book can actually be bigger than a novel. Novels, as the above definition says, are works of fiction. A work of non-fiction is therefore not a novel. So a non-fiction work that is 800 pages in length is still a book.

Answer 3

No.
A book is the physical item, the pages, the cover the presence of words/pictures. A book is not necessarily a novel. It could be a cook book or a dictionary or a picture book, etc.

A novel is an anecdote. Fiction or Non-Fiction (though less often, because it must be in the form of a story, and not a biography or something). It's usually fairly long. It's usually a book, but technically it could be on a computer or something and still be a novel, but not a book.

Answer 4

A novel is simply a type of book. It's a work of fiction. Books are generally broken down first into fiction and nonfiction. Fiction is then generally broken down into these subcategories: short stories, novellas and novels. A novel is a book-length piece of fiction, novellas are longer short stories. Of course there are countless subcategories you can fit works of fiction into but generally the first areas they get broken down into are based on length.

Answer 5

I don't think so. ...My best guess would be a difference of quality....hm, you raise a pretty interesting point.