Difference Between Novel vs Book
Today, we’re going to look at the difference between novel and book, an often misunderstood comparison that is very easy to unravel. Novels are a means of expressively using written text to entertain people or invoke an emotional response. But they certainly aren’t the same as a book.
A book is used to cover a wide array of subject matter, but usually, it serves as a vehicle to convey information and educational or serious content. It can do so either using fictional or nonfictional content. We’re going to provide you with a quick reference table to make the novel vs book comparison easier for you to break down, but first, we’ll look at the definition of each individual word.
Definition of Novel
A novel is: “A fictional narrative, the length of a book, created using fictional characters, possibly fictional places, and generally fictional content for the purpose of entertainment.”
So, from the definition above, we can see that a novel is a very specific form of writing a book.
In a way, you might prefer to view a book as being a platform and a novel as something that you’d build onto that platform. Novels are simply expressive forms of artistic creation and are merely designed to pull in a reader via the exploration of several senses.
This is the same way that poetry is a very specific use of a language. Novels are a very specific use of a book format, one that covers (usually) a very caged and narrow type of subject matter. The difference between novel and book then isn’t that they’re both completely different from one another. One is just simply a way of using the other. Let’s now delve into the definition of book, to help identify the differences in more detail.
Definition of Book
A book is: “Printed or written work, featuring pages glued or sewn together, often bound by some form of cover.”
With the above description, it’s easy to understand how so many people would confuse these two words, as at least in appearance terms. They are both the same as one another. But the difference between book and novel doesn’t lie in material. This is because a novel, at the end of the day, is still a book. It’s just a book that has been created for a very specific purpose.
A book isn’t resigned to one purpose whatsoever and can cover a wide array of subject matter. A book is typically designed to inform and educate a person about either one or a wide variety of different subjects, though it can do so using either fictional or non-fictional material.
Main Differences Between Novel vs Book
We’re now going to present you with a table that highlights the key differences between these two words:
| Basis of Comparison | Book | Novel |
| Purpose | A long text designed to convey either fictional or non fictional material | A long text designed to entertain and convey purely fictional material |
| Terminology | A general term referring to any work of literature | A specific term used to describe or label a very specific form of literature |
| Who typically creates them? | An author | A novelist |
| Examples | Biographies, autobiographies, history books, textbooks, manuals | Crime, drama, science fiction, romance, satire |
| Word count | Typically 90,000 or more | Usually 40,000 or more |
Though you came here today pondering over the question what is the difference between novel and book, you should now have everything you need to clear up any confusion.
Difference Between Novel and Book: Conclusion
What was once a confusing subject should make total sense to you now that we’ve delved into the different meanings behind these words. If you want an easy sentence to remember them with, then use the following statement: “A novel is intended for fun, a book is intended to educate or inform.”
The differences are admittedly small and either writing format can be used to perform the opposite function at times. But generally speaking, this statement is absolutely true. Should you get lost in the future, simply come back to our quick reference table for a refresh.
