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

Answer 1

All of the above answers are correct and helpful. A book can be about anything, and might not even contain words. A book is any set of pages bound between covers.

A novel is, specifically, a prose narrative of substantial length. There is not universally agreed length at which something becomes a novel, but many awards for novels require that the novel contain at least 40,000 words. However, there are many Young Adult novels that contain as few as 35,000 or even 30,000. For purists, a fictional story of 30,000 words that is in a book of its own is not a novel, but a novella. Others might just call it a short novel.

Now, putting my English professor hat on, I will observe that the word "novel" refers to the realistic tradition of book-length stories. Often, the first European novel is said to be Don Quixote by Cervantes. Before that, there were stories of similar length also published as books, but these were not called novels. They were called "romances," which is not to be confused with modern stories of romantic love. They were romances because they were unrealistic adventures. However, only professors are likely to make this distinction now. Today, even books that are clearly romances, such as Harry Potter, are called novels.

Answer 2

i guess a book can be any type of book (eg. a cooking book, comic book, magazine)

a novel, however, is a long story with a relatively long and complex plot, and is divided into chapters.

a book is the physical object, the cover and the pages; a novel is the information inside.

Answer 3

"Book" is a generic term for any bound text. This can include novels, nonfiction, short stories, poetry, academic texts, essays, plays, etc.

"Novel" is a type of book. It specifically means a long work of fiction that is NOT a play or epic poem.

Answer 4

A novel is a type of book. It is a fiction book.
Books can be nonfiction too.

Answer 5

a book is a tangible item. pieces of paper (usually) fastened together that people read. A novel is a story written on paper and made into a book.