Unless you’re speedrunning a Minecraft survival world, you’ll likely come up with a use for a book at some point. So, in this article, we’re going to take a look at how to make a Minecraft book, how to obtain one in other ways, and how to use it.

A book is a very simple recipe in Minecraft, and even the recipe components are pretty easy to farm, so making books is very easy to do. However, you can also find them in various places in the Overworld. Hopefully, this article will help you decide which is the best method for you.

How to make a book in Minecraft

To craft a book in Minecraft, all you’ll need is leather and paper, both of which are very easy to get. We have a separate article on paper – although, in short, you can craft it from sugar cane – and leather drops from Minecraft cows. To farm those, check out our guide on how to breed animals in Minecraft. If you have looting on a sword when you kill a Minecraft cow, you’ll have a great chance of getting leather to drop.

Anyway, once you have one leather and three paper, you’ll simply need to arrange the items in a crafting table in any way you wish. In fact, you can even do this without a Crafting Table, as the 2×2 crafting table in your inv entory is sufficient.

And there you have it, you’ve crafted a Minecraft book. Pretty simple, right? Well, it’s all good and well if you only need a couple of books, but if you need more, you’ll need a good sugar cane farm and cow farm. Or you can go and find some books elsewhere in the Overworld…

Where to find books in Minecraft

Villages

In a Librarian’s Village house, you’ll find a few bookshelves, which you can break down into books. You’ll also be able to get a Lectern from there as well. What’s more, if you’ve got some emeralds, you could trade with the Librarian.

Trading

Librarians have a chance of selling a bookshelf, which you can then break into three books. If you’re looking for Enchanted Books, you can also get these through trading with Librarians as well, which can be a bit easier than using a book in an enchanting table.

Strongholds

While you’re likely to find a Stronghold a little later on in the game, you can get loads of books from inside one, as they can contain a lot of bookshelves. Stronghold can generate with up to two libraries inside, which themselves can contain either 161 or 233 bookshelves… That’s three times as many books, i.e. more than you probably need.

Chests

You may also find books or Enchanted books in Chests across the Overworld. Books can be found in Shipwreck Chests, Stronghold library chests (if you needed any more there), Village Chests, and Ancient City Chests. Enchanted books have a chance of spawning in any Overworld chests, including Pillager Outposts, Mineshafts, Woodland Mansions and Underwater Ruins.

How to use Minecraft books

So, when you’ve got up to 1,398 books from a Stronghold, what on earth do you do with them? Well, you’ve probably found this article because you want a book for a reason, but you might not know all of the uses for a Minecraft book, so let’s go through them.

Bookshelves

Well, OK, this one’s a little backwards, but unless you have Silk Touch with you when you’re breaking those Bookshelves, you’ll need to rebuild them again. All it takes is six Wooden Planks and three books, so you don’t lose any books from broken bookshelves, just the wood. 30 Bookshelves are required for a fully-working Enchantment area, but more can be added for aesthetic purposes, or they can be used elsewhere in your base to make things look a little more homely.

Enchanting and Enchanting Table

How to use Minecraft book Enchantment table area bookshelf

You’ll also need books as part of the recipe for the Enchantment Table, which – quite literally – no enchantment area is complete without. You can also then enchant books in your Enchantment Table. We’ve got a separate guide on enchanting in Minecraft, though, so check that out for more details!

Lectern

Another great use for a bookshelf (and, thus, books) is making a Lectern. Again, Lecterns can be used in a number of creative design ideas, but most useful is as a work block for a Librarian. By forcing an unemployed Villager to work from a Lectern, you’ll be able to trade with it for some of the most valuable Enchanted books, including Mending and Unbreaking – provided you get the right trades.

Book and Quill

Finally, there’s the book and quill. Though, to be quite honest, I’ve been playing Minecraft for years and have never had a use for a book and quill (until I made the header image for this article). They are most likely to be used in multiplayer servers or playable Minecraft maps, but in standard survival mode, there’s not a lot of use for a book and quill past decoration.

More Minecraft Crafting Recipe guides

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How to make a book in Minecraft

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