Here’s How to Craft Books in Minecraft – A Step-by-Step Guide
Books are essential ingredients for enchanting and crafting in Minecraft, and there’s seemingly not enough of them present in the game if you mostly rely on gathering them, that is. Most of the players, however, need a steady and reliable source of books, and the only way to have that is to craft them yourself. This is why we’ve prepared today’s guide. Let’s see how to craft books in Minecraft and what the alternatives are.
Editor’s Note: This post was updated in October 2023, and it reflects the most up-to-date state of the game.
What are books used for in Minecraft?
Books are relatively easy to acquire in Minecraft if you do a lot of exploring, and this is for a good reason, as they are vital when it comes to enchanting. Without enchanting, you will never unlock some important features in Minecraft, and you will forfeit all improvements for your equipment, gear, and weapons in general. Currently, books are used to create Book and Quill, Bookshelves, and, most importantly, Enchanting Table.
You need at least one book to get into Enchanting, so what happens when you just can’t seem to find one? Well, you have to craft them.
Books are crafted at the crafting station with relatively common ingredients
To craft a book in Minecraft, you need 3x paper and 1x leather. Paper is relatively easy to find in common places like shipwrecks, strongholds, and villages and can also be created by using 3x pieces of Sugarcane. Leather is also easy to come by if you have cows, as they drop the material as loot when killed. To craft a book in Minecraft, you need to interact with the Crafting table and combine 3x pieces of paper and 1x leather in the pattern visible in the image below.
What are the alternative ways of obtaining books?
If you really can’t seem to pull together all the necessary ingredients to create a book, you can always run into one as you explore different ruins and chests that dot Minecraft’s landscape. Books are most commonly found in chests within these structures: Ancient Cities, Shipwrecks, Strongholds, and Villages.
You can also acquire some books by blowing up a bookshelf or mining it with a tool enchanted by Silk Touch. In either case, three books will be dropped.
Do Librarian Villagers trade books?
Even though you can offer a book as a trade to Librarian Villager, he will never offer a regular book as a part of the trade. Librarian Villagers offer only enchanted books for trade, and the amount depends on the level that Librarian is, so don’t count on them as your regular source of books either.
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