• Book of the Khazar (work by Judah ha-Levi)

    Judah ha-Levi: …Zion, and the Sefer ha-Kuzari (“Book of the Khazar”), presenting his philosophy of Judaism in dialogue form.

  • Book of the King (legal code of Jerusalem-Acre)

    Crusades: The Latin East after the Third Crusade: The Livre au Roi (Book of the King), an important section of the Assizes of Jerusalem, dates from his reign. He also dealt wisely with Saladin’s brother, al-ʿĀdil of Egypt. On Amalric’s death in 1205, the kingdoms of Cyprus and Jerusalem-Acre were divided, and in 1210…

  • Book of the Law of the Lord (work by Strang)

    James Jesse Strang: …him by an angel) The Book of the Law of the Lord from golden plates from the Ark of the Covenant. Strang then established a secret society that swore allegiance to him and operated under puritanical rules.

  • Book of the Law, The (work by Crowley)

    Aleister Crowley: …reported mystical experiences and wrote The Book of the Law, a prose poem which he claimed had been dictated to him by a discarnate being called Aiwass. In it he formulated his most famous teaching: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” The sentiment was not…

  • Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans, The (work by Nuttall)

    Zelia Maria Magdalena Nuttall: …library in England; and in The Book of the Life of the Ancient Mexicans (1903), which printed in facsimile the Codex Magliabecchiano, a similar pictographic work that she had found in Florence.

  • Book of the Night (ancient Egyptian text)

    Valley of the Kings: …of Day” and the “Book of Night,” which depict Nut, the sky-goddess, spread out across the heavens, as well as the “Book of the Heavenly Cow,” in which Nut is transformed into a cow on whom Re ascends to the firmament. Astronomical figures decorate the ceilings of several burial…

  • Book of the Prefect (manual by Leo VI)

    guild: Early history: The famous Book of the Prefect, a manual of government probably drawn up by the Byzantine emperor Leo VI in the year 900, provides a picture of an elaborate guild organization whose primary function was the imposition of rigid controls, especially for financial and tax-raising purposes, on…

  • Book of the Secret of Creation (work attributed to Apollonius of Tyana)

    alchemy: Arabic alchemy: …from a larger work called Book of the Secret of Creation, which exists in Latin and Arabic manuscripts and was thought by the Muslim alchemist ar-Rāzī to have been written during the reign of Caliph al-Maʾmūn (ad 813–833), though it has been attributed to the 1st-century-ad pagan mystic Apollonius of…

  • Book of the Songs of Dzitbalché (Mayan literature)

    Yucatec language: …of Chilam Balam and the Book of the Songs of Dzitbalché.

  • Book of the Sword (work by Burton)

    Sir Richard Burton: Trieste: His Book of the Sword (1884), a dazzling piece of historical erudition, brought him no more financial success than any of the others. In 1880 he published his best original poetry, The Kasidah, written under a pseudonym and patterned after the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

  • Book of the Transformations of Laozi (Daoist text)

    Taoism: Texts on the cult of Laozi: …the Transformations of Laozi (Laozi bianhuajing), shows him in cosmic perspective, omnipresent and omnipotent, the origin of all life. His human manifestations are listed, followed by his successive roles in legendary history, as the sage counsellor of emperors. Next, five of his more recent appearances are mentioned, dated 132–155…

  • Book of Thel, The (work by Blake)

    William Blake: Blake as a poet: …life a little further in The Book of Thel (1789), the first of his published myths. The melancholy shepherdess Thel asks, “Why fade these children of the spring? Born but to smile & fall.” She is answered by the Lilly of the Valley (representing water), the Cloud (air), and the…

  • Book of Theseus, The (work by Boccaccio)

    Giovanni Boccaccio: Early works: The Teseida (probably begun in Naples and finished in Florence, 1340–41) is an ambitious epic of 12 cantos in ottava rima in which the wars of Theseus serve as a background for the love of two friends, Arcita and Palemone, for the same woman, Emilia; Arcita…

  • Book of Thoth, The (work by Crowley)

    Aleister Crowley: …achievement was the publication of The Book of Thoth (1944), in which he interpreted a new tarot card deck, called the Thoth, that he had designed in collaboration with the artist Frieda Harris.

  • Book of Tropes, The (work by Ibn al-Muʿtazz)

    Arabic literature: Emerging poetics: …for his Kitāb al-badīʿ (The Book of Tropes), in which he provides a list of five major poetic devices (including metaphor and simile) and then lists a further group of “discourse embellishments.” While his goal was to demonstrate that these devices were present in Arabic writing from the outset…

  • Book of Urizen, The (work by Blake)

    Urizen: …including America, a Prophecy (1793), The Book of Urizen (1794), and The Song of Los (1795), and then, more ambitiously, in the unfinished manuscript Vala, or The Four Zoas, written from approximately 1796 to 1807. In an engraving from Europe, a Prophecy (1794), Blake depicts Urizen as a grim scientist,…

  • Book of Verse, A (work by Morris)

    William Morris: Iceland and socialism: The exquisitely illuminated A Book of Verse, telling once more of hopeless love and dedicated to Georgina Burne-Jones, belongs to 1870.

  • Book of Victory, The (work by Sharaf ad-Dīn)

    Sharaf ad-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī: …known is the Ẓafernāmeh (1424/25; The Book of Victory). It is a history of the world conqueror Timur (Tamerlane; 1370–1405) and was probably based on the history of the same name by Nizam ad-Dīn Shami, a work written at Timur’s request.

  • Book on Games of Chance, The (work by Cardano)

    Girolamo Cardano: …Liber de ludo aleae (The Book on Games of Chance) presents the first systematic computations of probabilities, a century before Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat. Cardano’s popular fame was based largely on books dealing with scientific and philosophical questions, especially De subtilitate rerum (“The Subtlety of Things”), a…

  • Book on the Education of a Prince (work by Gerald of Wales)

    mirror for princes: …Princes, and Gerald of Wales’s Book on the Education of a Prince, all written between about 1180 and 1220.

  • Book Pahlavi

    Pahlavi language, extinct member of the Iranian language group, a subdivision of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Pahlavi is a Middle Persian (sometimes called Middle Iranian) language, meaning that it was primarily used from the end of Achaemenian dynasty (559–330 bce)

  • book paper

    papermaking: Book paper: Most book papers are made of various combinations of chemical wood pulp; for lower-priced grades groundwood, semichemical, and de-inked wastepaper are also used. In addition to pulp, the “furnish” from which book papers are made contains various amounts of sizing, fillers, and dyes.

  • book scorpion (arthropod)

    false scorpion, any of the 1,700 species of the order Pseudoscorpiones (sometimes Chelonethida) of the arthropod class Arachnida. They resemble true scorpions but are tailless and only 1 to 7.5 mm (0.04 to 0.3 inch) long. The chelicerae (first pair of appendages) bear silk-gland openings, and the

  • book scorpion (arthropod species)

    false scorpion: The book scorpion (Chelifer cancroides), 4 mm long, occurs in houses and libraries. It feeds on book lice, carpet beetle larvae, clothes moths, and bedbugs.

  • book shelf (furniture)

    bookcase, piece of furniture fitted with shelves, often enclosed by glass doors, to hold books. A form of bookcase was used in early times: the illuminated manuscript Codex Amiatinus (ad 689–716) in Florence contains an illustration of the prophet Ezra writing in front of a cupboard with open doors

  • Book Thief, The (film by Percival [2013])

    Geoffrey Rush: …the World War II drama The Book Thief (2013), in which he played a German man who, with his wife, shelters an abandoned girl and a Jewish refugee. In 2016 Rush appeared in the action fantasy Gods of Egypt, and the following year he portrayed Albert Einstein in the first…

  • Book Token (gift certificate)

    history of publishing: The Great Depression: …that stimulated sales was the Book Token, a form of gift certificate. The invention of an English publisher, Harold Raymond, the Book Token could be exchanged for a book of specified value at any participating bookshop. It was at first opposed by many booksellers; but it went on to become…

  • book trachea (anatomy)

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

  • book van

    bookmobile, shelf-lined motor van or other vehicle that carries books to rural and urban areas, establishes library service in areas that are too small to justify the creation of a stable branch, and acts as a demonstration model for communities that can afford library service and may choose to

  • Book, People of the (Islam)

    Ahl al-Kitāb, in Islamic thought, those religionists—Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, as well as the imprecisely defined group referred to as Sabians—who are possessors of divine books (i.e., the Torah, the Gospel, and the Avesta), as distinguished from those whose religions are not based on

  • Book, The (concept by Erdős)

    Paul Erdős: …to say, “That’s straight from The Book.” As for Bertrand’s postulate, no one doubted that Erdős had found The Book proof.

  • Book-of-the-Month Club (American business)

    book club: In the United States the Book-of-the-Month Club (1926) and the Literary Guild (1927) were the first such enterprises, the former distributing more than 200,000,000 new copies of fiction and nonfiction in its first 40 years, especially to areas where there were few bookstores. Book clubs—and similar marketing ventures patterned after…

  • bookbinding (publishing)

    bookbinding, the joining together of a number of leaves or folios (most frequently of paper, parchment, or vellum) within covers to form a codex or book, as opposed to a roll or scroll. Bookbinding began when the codex started to replace the roll. The earliest elaborately decorated bookbindings

  • bookcase (furniture)

    bookcase, piece of furniture fitted with shelves, often enclosed by glass doors, to hold books. A form of bookcase was used in early times: the illuminated manuscript Codex Amiatinus (ad 689–716) in Florence contains an illustration of the prophet Ezra writing in front of a cupboard with open doors

  • Bookchin, Murray (American anarchist, political philosopher, trade-union organizer, and educator)

    Murray Bookchin was an American anarchist, political philosopher, trade-union organizer, and educator best known for his organizing activities on behalf of labour unions and his vehement critiques of capitalism, globalization, and humanity’s treatment of the environment. Bookchin was the son of

  • Booke Containing Divers Sortes of Hands, A (work by de Beauchesne and Baildon)

    calligraphy: Writing manuals and copybooks (16th to 18th century): …first copybook published in England, A Booke Containing Divers Sortes of Hands (1570; this title also translates Cresci’s), is the work of a French Huguenot immigrant writing master, Jean de Beauchesne, and John Baildon (or Basildon), about whom nothing further is known. Divers Sortes of Hands has characteristics of both…

  • Booke of Common Praier Noted, The (work by Marbeck)

    Anglican chant: When John Marbeck published The Booke of Common Praier Noted (1550), he used the first seven psalm tones for the canticles and tone eight for the psalms. Like Marbeck, various English composers used the psalm tones in their polyphonic (multipart) psalm settings, placing them in the tenor part “measured,”…

  • Bookends (album by Simon and Garfunkel)

    Simon and Garfunkel: Bookends: The stark black-and-white cover of Bookends (1968) reflected Simon’s ever-developing themes of alienation and loneliness. It was the first album for which Simon and Garfunkel were credited as producers (alongside longtime engineer Roy Halee), and it seemed surprisingly cohesive in light of the first…

  • Booker McConnell Prize (British literary award)

    Booker Prize, prestigious British award given annually to a full-length novel in English. Booker McConnell, a multinational company, established the Booker Prize in 1968 to provide a counterpart to the Prix Goncourt in France. Initially, only English-language writers from the United Kingdom, the

  • Booker Prize (British literary award)

    Booker Prize, prestigious British award given annually to a full-length novel in English. Booker McConnell, a multinational company, established the Booker Prize in 1968 to provide a counterpart to the Prix Goncourt in France. Initially, only English-language writers from the United Kingdom, the

  • Booker Prize for Fiction (British literary award)

    Booker Prize, prestigious British award given annually to a full-length novel in English. Booker McConnell, a multinational company, established the Booker Prize in 1968 to provide a counterpart to the Prix Goncourt in France. Initially, only English-language writers from the United Kingdom, the

  • Booker Russian Novel Prize (British-Russian literary award)

    Booker Prize: In 1992 the Booker Russian Novel Prize was set up to reward contemporary Russian authors, to stimulate wider knowledge of modern Russian fiction, and to encourage translation and publication of Russian fiction outside Russia. The Russian prize was disassociated from the other Bookers in 1999, after which sponsorship…

  • Booker T. and the MG’s (American music group)

    Booker T. and the MG’s, American band that was among the finest instrumental ensembles in soul music in the 1960s. The original members were organist Booker T. Jones (b. November 12, 1944, Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.), drummer Al Jackson, Jr. (b. November 27, 1935, Memphis—d. October 1, 1975,

  • Booker Washington Agricultural and Industrial Institute (institution, Kakata, Liberia)

    Kakata: …is the site of the Booker Washington Institute (1929; Liberia’s first vocational and agricultural school), the Kakata Rural Teacher Training Institute, and several church secondary schools. Rubber production, diamond prospecting, and subsistence rice farming are important to Kakata’s economy. Barite deposits are found in the nearby Gibi Ridge. Pop. (2008)…

  • Booker, Cory (United States senator)

    Cory Booker is an American politician who was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2013 representing New Jersey, becoming the state’s first Black senator. On the evening of March 31, 2025, Booker took to the floor of the Senate and, invoking the memory of the late Rep. John Lewis, said he

  • Booker, Cory Anthony (United States senator)

    Cory Booker is an American politician who was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2013 representing New Jersey, becoming the state’s first Black senator. On the evening of March 31, 2025, Booker took to the floor of the Senate and, invoking the memory of the late Rep. John Lewis, said he

  • Booker, Devin (American basketball player)

    Devin Booker is an American shooting guard who plays for the Phoenix Suns in the NBA and is known for his explosive scoring performances and smooth technical skills. He first gained wide attention in 2017 when, at age 20, he scored 70 points in a single game, becoming the sixth and the youngest

  • Booker, Devin Armani (American basketball player)

    Devin Booker is an American shooting guard who plays for the Phoenix Suns in the NBA and is known for his explosive scoring performances and smooth technical skills. He first gained wide attention in 2017 when, at age 20, he scored 70 points in a single game, becoming the sixth and the youngest

  • Booker, John Lee (American musician)

    John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-guitarist, one of the most distinctive artists in the electric blues idiom. Born into a Mississippi sharecropping family, Hooker learned to play the guitar from his stepfather and developed an interest in gospel music as a child. In 1943 he moved to

  • Bookie (American television program)

    Chuck Lorre: Later career: …and nurse (Folake Olowofoyeku); and Bookie (2023– ), starring Sebastian Maniscalco as a bookmaker. Bookie served as a vehicle to reconcile Lorre with Charlie Sheen, as the latter appeared in two episodes of the new show. Lorre married Arielle Mandelson in 2018 (divorced 2024).

  • bookkeeping (business)

    bookkeeping, the recording of the monetary values of the transactions of a business. Bookkeeping provides the information from which accounts are prepared but is a distinct process, preliminary to accounting. Essentially, bookkeeping provides two kinds of information: Management officials,

  • booklet (literature)

    pamphlet, brief booklet; in the UNESCO definition, it is an unbound publication that is not a periodical and contains no fewer than 5 and no more than 48 pages, exclusive of any cover. After the invention of printing, short unbound or loosely bound booklets were called pamphlets. Since polemical

  • booklouse (insect)

    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;…

  • bookmaking (gambling)

    bookmaking, gambling practice of determining odds and receiving and paying off bets on the outcome of sporting events (particularly horse racing), political contests, and other competitions. Some Commonwealth countries (including the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand), Belgium, and Germany

  • Bookman (American magazine)

    best seller: Bookman, an American magazine of literature and criticism, began running best-seller lists in 1895, when it began publication. The list was compiled from reports of sales at bookstores throughout the country. Similar lists began to appear in other literary magazines and in metropolitan newspapers. The…

  • bookmobile

    bookmobile, shelf-lined motor van or other vehicle that carries books to rural and urban areas, establishes library service in areas that are too small to justify the creation of a stable branch, and acts as a demonstration model for communities that can afford library service and may choose to

  • bookplate

    bookplate, a label with a printed design intended to indicate ownership, usually pasted inside the front cover of a book. Bookplates probably originated in Germany, where the earliest known example, dated about the middle of the 15th century, is found. The earliest dated bookplate extant is also

  • books, burning of the (Chinese history)

    Mao Chang: …dynasty (221–206 bc), a massive burning of books took place in which most copies of the Confucian classics were destroyed. After the founding of the Han dynasty (206 bc–ad 220), an intensive campaign was undertaken to replace the classics; older scholars who had memorized these works in their entirety provided…

  • Books, Children and Men (work by Hazard)

    children’s literature: North versus south: by Marguerite Mitchell, Books, Children and Men, 1944; 4th ed., 1960): “In the matter of literature for children the North surpasses the South by a large margin.” For Hazard, Spain had no children’s literature; Italy, with its Pinocchio and Cuore, could point only to an isolated pair of…

  • Booksellers’ Mosque (mosque, Marrakech, Morocco)

    Almohads: The Booksellers’ Mosque (Kutubiyyah) in Marrakech and the older parts of the mosque of Taza date from his reign. Neither did the movement for a return to traditionalist Islam survive; both the mystical movement of the Sufis and the philosophical schools represented by Ibn Ṭufayl and Averroës (Ibn…

  • Booksellers’ Row (street, London, United Kingdom)

    pornography: …than 50 pornographic shops on Holywell Street (known as “Booksellers’ Row”) in London. Pornography continued to flourish during the Victorian Age in Britain and in the United States despite—or perhaps because of—the taboos on sexual topics that were characteristic of the era. The massive and anonymous autobiography My Secret Life…

  • bookselling

    history of publishing: Selling and promotion: The publisher’s techniques for book promotion have become increasingly sophisticated in all advanced countries. The typical traveler or book salesman is likely to hold a college degree, certainly in the United States; he receives a careful briefing from the home office, with…

  • bookshelf (furniture)

    bookcase, piece of furniture fitted with shelves, often enclosed by glass doors, to hold books. A form of bookcase was used in early times: the illuminated manuscript Codex Amiatinus (ad 689–716) in Florence contains an illustration of the prophet Ezra writing in front of a cupboard with open doors

  • Booksmart (film by Wilde [2019])

    Olivia Wilde: Directing: …feature film directorial debut with Booksmart (2019), a raunchy high-school comedy about two overachieving seniors (Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein) who are shocked to discover that their partying classmates were also accepted to top colleges. Angry over missed experiences, the duo attempts to have as many adventures as possible in…

  • Booktrust (British organization)

    Women’s Prize for Fiction: The prize was administered by Booktrust, an English literary advocacy organization, and sponsored and organized by the Orange Group. It was judged by a female panel chosen by the prize’s founders. Organizers dismissed accusations of sexism, though they formed a shadow panel of male judges for the 2001 contest. In…

  • bookworm (insect)

    bookworm, any insect (e.g., moths, beetles) whose larval (or adult) forms injure books by gnawing the binding and piercing the pages with small holes. No single species may properly be called the bookworm because a large number of insects feed upon dry, starchy material or paper and may damage

  • Bool, Alfred (English photographer)

    history of photography: Landscape and architectural documentation: Alfred and John Bool and Henry Dixon worked for the Society for Photographing Old London, recording historical buildings and relics. In the 1850s the French government commissioned several photographers to document historical buildings. Working with cameras making photographs as large as 20 by 29 inches…

  • Bool, John (English photographer)

    history of photography: Landscape and architectural documentation: Alfred and John Bool and Henry Dixon worked for the Society for Photographing Old London, recording historical buildings and relics. In the 1850s the French government commissioned several photographers to document historical buildings. Working with cameras making photographs as large as 20 by 29 inches (51 by…

  • Boole Tree (tree, California, United States)

    Sequoia National Forest and Giant Sequoia National Monument: …well-stocked trout streams, and the Boole Tree, with a height of 269 feet (82 meters) and a circumference of 35 feet (11 meters), the largest known tree in any U.S. national forest. Dome Land Wilderness, one of five wilderness areas within the national forest, is a lofty region northeast of…

  • Boole, George (British mathematician)

    George Boole was an English mathematician who helped establish modern symbolic logic and whose algebra of logic, now called Boolean algebra, is basic to the design of digital computer circuits. Boole was given his first lessons in mathematics by his father, a tradesman, who also taught him to make

  • Boolean algebra (mathematics)

    Boolean algebra, symbolic system of mathematical logic that represents relationships between entities—either ideas or objects. The basic rules of this system were formulated in 1847 by George Boole of England and were subsequently refined by other mathematicians and applied to set theory. Today,

  • Boolean local topos (mathematics)

    foundations of mathematics: Boolean local topoi: A topos is said to be Boolean if its internal language is classical. It is named after the English mathematician George Boole (1815–64), who was the first to give an algebraic presentation of the classical calculus of propositions. A Boolean topos is…

  • boom (economics)

    government economic policy: Stabilization policy problems: During booms, tax revenues rise and the need for expenditures on unemployment compensation decreases, channeling a larger proportion of the national income into government coffers; these effects are accentuated if the tax system is progressive because tax revenues rise more rapidly than money incomes. Provided that…

  • boom (ship part)

    fore-and-aft sail: The mainsail always has a boom, pivoted on the mast. Historically, it represented an important advance over the ancient square sail; it first appeared in the Mediterranean as the lateen sail. Full-rigged ships carried both types of sail; modern sport sailing craft carry fore-and-aft sails exclusively because of their ready…

  • Boom Boom Mancini (American boxer)

    boxing: Professional boxing: …after being knocked out by Ray (“Boom Boom”) Mancini in a championship fight that was nationally televised in the United States. (It was most likely the cumulative effect of the punishing blows throughout the match that led to Kim’s death, however, and not the final knockout punch.) Despite improved safety…

  • boom microphone (sound instrument)

    Dorothy Arzner: Early life and work: …which she created the “boom mike,” a long pole with a microphone attached that followed the actors around but remained out of camera range, thus giving the actors a mobility that had been prohibited by the stationary microphones previously used. The film, which starred Bow, was also innovative in…

  • boom mike (sound instrument)

    Dorothy Arzner: Early life and work: …which she created the “boom mike,” a long pole with a microphone attached that followed the actors around but remained out of camera range, thus giving the actors a mobility that had been prohibited by the stationary microphones previously used. The film, which starred Bow, was also innovative in…

  • Boom Town (film by Conway [1940])

    Jack Conway: The 1940s: …box-office success with the lively Boom Town, which chronicles two oilmen (Gable and Tracy) as they compete in business and romance; Lamarr and Claudette Colbert also starred in the drama. Conway had another hit with Love Crazy (1941), a deft comedy about a couple (Powell and Loy) whose marriage becomes…

  • Boom! Voices of the Sixties (work by Brokaw)

    Tom Brokaw: …including The Greatest Generation (1998), Boom!: Voices of the Sixties (2007), The Time of Our Lives: A Conversation About America (2011), and The Fall of Richard Nixon: A Reporter Remembers Watergate (2019). A Long Way from Home: Growing Up in the American Heartland (2002) and A Lucky Life Interrupted: A…

  • boomer (kangaroo)

    kangaroo: Behaviour: …male (“old man,” or “boomer”) dominates during the mating season. Males fight for access to females by biting, kicking, and boxing. These methods are also used by kangaroos to defend themselves against predators. With their agile arms, they can spar vigorously. They can also use the forepaws to grip…

  • boomerang (weaponry)

    boomerang, curved throwing stick used chiefly by the Aboriginals of Australia for hunting and warfare. Boomerangs are also works of art, and Aboriginals often paint or carve designs on them related to legends and traditions. In addition, boomerangs continue to be used in some religious ceremonies

  • Boomerang (film by Hudlin [1992])

    Halle Berry: …by Spike Lee, and in Boomerang (1992), starring Eddie Murphy, first brought her notice. She starred with Jessica Lange in Losing Isaiah (1995), a drama about adoption, before earning acclaim for her portrayal of film star Dorothy Dandridge, the first African American to be nominated for a best-actress Oscar, in…

  • Boomerang kids: Managing an adult child’s return home

    When you were a kid, the concept of a boomerang may have seemed cool: You throw it and it flies right back to you. But there are some things in life you don’t want to return, like the memory of your first awkward kiss, a significant other who’s now quite insignificant, or even a bounced check. Then

  • Boomerang! (film by Kazan [1947])

    Elia Kazan: Films of the 1940s: …Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, and Boomerang! (1947), a taut film noir thriller with a cast that included Lee J. Cobb, Arthur Kennedy, and Dana Andrews. Kazan’s next effort, the Darryl F. Zanuck-produced Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), won him an Academy Award for best director and also took the award for best…

  • Boomgaard group (Flemish writers)

    Belgian literature: The turn of the 19th century: …group associated with the review De Boomgaard (1909–11; “The Orchard”), which included André de Ridder and Paul Gustave van Hecke, strove to be more cosmopolitan than Van Nu en Straks and defended a more dilettante attitude to culture. The elegiac poet Jan van Nijlen had affinities with this group.

  • boomslang (snake)

    boomslang, (Dispholidus typus), venomous snake of the family Colubridae, one of the few colubrid species that is decidedly dangerous to humans. This moderately slender snake grows to about 1.8 metres (6 feet) in length and occurs in savannas throughout sub-Saharan Africa. When hunting, it lies in

  • Boomtown Rats, the (Irish rock band)

    Bob Geldof: …who is a member of The Boomtown Rats rock group. He founded the charitable supergroup Band Aid in 1984 and organized the Live Aid concert in 1985 for the relief of famine in Ethiopia.

  • Boon, Louis-Paul (Belgian author)

    Belgian literature: After World War II: …(Het begeren, 1952; “Desire”) and Louis-Paul Boon (De kapellekensbaan, 1953; Chapel Road), who examined the bleak lives of the poor and downtrodden; the anguished Existentialism of Jan Walravens (Negatief, 1958; “Negative”); and the experimental novels of Hugo Claus. Boon, Walravens, and Claus belonged to a review group called Tijd en…

  • Boondocks, The (comic strip)

    comic strip: Women and minorities: from minor characters to creators: Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks (1997–2006), which was syndicated in some 300 newspapers and transformed into an animated television series, featured a black child of the inner city named Huey Freeman as its main character. This character was the only consistent voice of dissent in American comic strips…

  • Boone (Iowa, United States)

    Boone, city, Boone county, central Iowa, U.S., just east of the Des Moines River, 15 miles (25 km) west of Ames. Founded in 1865, it was originally called Montana but was renamed (1871) to honour Captain Nathan Boone, son of frontiersman Daniel Boone. The railroad arrived in 1866 and contributed to

  • Boone (North Carolina, United States)

    Boone, town, seat of Watauga county, northwestern North Carolina, U.S. It is situated atop the Blue Ridge Mountains at an elevation of 3,266 feet (995 metres) near the Tennessee border. On the Daniel Boone Trail at the fork of the Wilderness Road, the settlement was incorporated in 1871 and named

  • Boone, Charles Eugene (American singer and television personality)

    Pat Boone is an American singer and television personality known for his wholesome pop hits in the 1950s and for hosting evangelical radio and television programs later in life. Boone began performing in public at a young age. After winning a local talent show in the early 1950s, he appeared on

  • Boone, Daniel (American frontiersman)

    Daniel Boone was an early American frontiersman and legendary hero who helped blaze a trail through Cumberland Gap, a notch in the Appalachian Mountains near the juncture of Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Boone had little formal schooling but learned to read and write. As a youth, he moved with

  • Boone, Mary (American art dealer)

    Julian Schnabel: …the young New York dealer Mary Boone.

  • Boone, Nathan (American frontiersman)

    Oskaloosa: …was founded there by Captain Nathan Boone, nephew of Daniel Boone, who explored the area in 1835. Settled by Quakers in 1843, it takes its name (meaning “the last of the beautiful”) from a wife of the Seminole chief Osceola. Iowa’s first coal was mined near there by Welsh miners…

  • Boone, Pat (American singer and television personality)

    Pat Boone is an American singer and television personality known for his wholesome pop hits in the 1950s and for hosting evangelical radio and television programs later in life. Boone began performing in public at a young age. After winning a local talent show in the early 1950s, he appeared on

  • Boone, Richard (American actor and motion picture director)

    Richard Boone was an American actor and director who was best known for his work on the television series Have Gun—Will Travel (1957–63). Boone attended Stanford University and later served in the navy during World War II. He subsequently pursued an acting career, and in 1947 he made his Broadway

  • Boonesboro (Kentucky, United States)

    Boonesborough, resort village, Madison county, east-central Kentucky, U.S., on the Kentucky River, 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Lexington. It is the site of Fort Boonesborough, built about 1775 by frontiersman Daniel Boone and a company of North Carolina men under pioneer Colonel Richard

  • Boonesborough (Kentucky, United States)

    Boonesborough, resort village, Madison county, east-central Kentucky, U.S., on the Kentucky River, 15 miles (24 km) southeast of Lexington. It is the site of Fort Boonesborough, built about 1775 by frontiersman Daniel Boone and a company of North Carolina men under pioneer Colonel Richard

  • Boonville (Missouri, United States)

    Boonville, city, seat (1818) of Cooper county, central Missouri, U.S. It lies along the Missouri River, 27 miles (43 km) west of Columbia. Settled in 1810 (by Kentuckians, among others) and named for Daniel Boone, Boonville was enlarged as a fort during the War of 1812 and became an important