Books are one of the most important crafting materials in Minecraft. You need them to make bookshelves, an enchanting table, a book and quill, and a lectern, and books are how you store enchantments for later. Making a book is simple once you have paper and leather, but finding leather early in a game can slow you down. This guide shows how to make a book in Minecraft step by step, where to get the ingredients, the fastest ways to farm them, and everything you can craft with books in Java and Bedrock Edition.
How to make a book in Minecraft
A book is a shapeless recipe: place 3 paper and 1 leather anywhere in a crafting grid and you get 1 book. Because it fits in a 2 by 2 grid, you can even craft it in your inventory without a crafting table.
| Ingredient | Amount | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Paper | 3 | 3 sugar cane make 3 paper |
| Leather | 1 | Cows, mooshrooms, horses, donkeys, mules, llamas and hoglins; or 4 rabbit hide |
| Result | 1 book | Stacks to 64 |
Step 1: Make paper
Collect sugar cane from beside rivers, lakes and beaches. Put 3 sugar cane in a row on a crafting table to make 3 paper. Each book needs 3 paper, so 1 sugar cane equals 1 paper. Read our full guide to making paper and sugar cane farms.
Step 2: Get leather
Kill cows, mooshrooms, horses, donkeys, mules or llamas to get 0 to 2 leather each, with Looting increasing the drop. Hoglins in the Nether also drop leather. If you only have rabbits, craft 4 rabbit hide into 1 leather. Leather can also be fished up as junk, bought or found in some village chests.
Step 3: Craft the book
Open your crafting grid, add 3 paper and 1 leather in any arrangement, and take the book from the output slot. Shift-click to craft as many as your materials allow.
Other ways to get books
- Break bookshelves: in both editions, breaking a bookshelf without Silk Touch drops 3 books. Village libraries, strongholds and woodland mansions have bookshelves you can mine.
- Loot chests: stronghold libraries, village chests, shipwrecks and other structures can contain books and enchanted books.
- Fishing: fishing can give enchanted books as treasure.
- Villagers: librarian villagers sell enchanted books and bookshelves for emeralds and buy paper and books, making them a great emerald source.
Farming leather and paper
Books need a lot of leather if you plan a full enchanting setup. The best long-term solution is a cow farm: fence in two or more cows, breed them with wheat, and let the population grow. A simple automatic cow farm uses a cramming or lava system to kill adults, but a manual pen with breeding every 5 minutes is enough for most players. Pair it with an automatic sugar cane farm using observers and pistons, and you will never run short of book materials. See breeding animals with horses as an example for how breeding works.
What can you craft with books?
| Item | Recipe | Use |
|---|---|---|
| Bookshelf | 6 planks + 3 books | Raises enchanting table level, decoration |
| Enchanting table | 1 book + 2 diamonds + 4 obsidian | Enchant gear and books |
| Book and quill | 1 book + 1 ink sac + 1 feather | Write notes and stories |
| Lectern | 4 wooden slabs + 1 bookshelf | Hold books for reading; librarian job block |
| Chiseled bookshelf | 6 planks + 3 wooden slabs | Stores up to 6 books visibly; no books needed to craft |
Bookshelves and enchanting
An enchanting table alone offers weak enchantments. Place 15 bookshelves around it, one block away with a gap of air, to unlock level 30 enchantments. That takes 45 books, which means 135 paper and 45 leather, so a cow farm is worth building early. For the table itself you also need obsidian; see how to make obsidian.
Enchanted books
Put a plain book in an enchanting table to create an enchanted book with one or more enchantments. You can then combine it with tools, weapons or armor on an anvil. Enchanted books are the best way to save rare enchantments such as Mending for later. Read how to make an anvil to use them.
Book and quill: writing in Minecraft
Craft a book and quill from a book, an ink sac and a feather. Hold it and use it to write pages of text, then sign it to turn it into a written book with a title and your name as the author. Written books are great for rules on servers, adventure map stories, coordinate logs and notes to friends. A written book can be copied by crafting it with a book and quill. On a lectern, other players can read it page by page.
Tips
- Hold Silk Touch for bookshelves only if you want to move them; otherwise break them for books.
- Trade surplus paper to librarians for emeralds, then buy enchanted books from them.
- Rabbit hide is a backup leather source in deserts and snowy biomes where cows are rare.
- Keep a chest of books near your enchanting area so you can make enchanted books in bulk.
Java vs Bedrock
The book recipe and bookshelf drops are the same in both editions. Both editions also let you craft books in the inventory grid. The main difference is in villager trading prices and some loot tables, which vary slightly.
Book FAQ
How do you make a book in Minecraft?
Combine 3 paper and 1 leather in any crafting grid.
Can you make a book without leather?
No, but you can craft leather from 4 rabbit hide, or get books by breaking bookshelves.
How many books for a full enchanting table?
15 bookshelves, which take 45 books in total.
Do you need a crafting table to make a book?
No. The recipe fits in the 2 by 2 inventory grid.
How many books do you need?
| Goal | Books | Paper | Leather |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enchanting table | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Full 15 bookshelves | 45 | 135 | 45 |
| Lectern (1 bookshelf) | 3 | 9 | 3 |
| Book and quill | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| Library wall of 64 bookshelves | 192 | 576 | 192 |
These numbers explain why most players build a cow pen and a sugar cane farm before they set up enchanting. Sugar cane grows on its own, so a single long row along a river can supply all the paper you need, while leather is usually the slower ingredient. Two cows bred every five minutes quickly become a herd of twenty, and each cow you collect from gives up to two leather, or more with Looting on your sword.
Early-game shortcut
If you need an enchanting table on day one, skip crafting books entirely and look for a village library. A single library usually has several bookshelves, and each one you break gives three books. That is often enough for the enchanting table and a few bookshelves without killing a single cow. Strongholds have huge libraries, but they come later in most worlds.
Common mistakes
- Using raw fish or rotten flesh: they cannot replace leather in the recipe.
- Breaking bookshelves with Silk Touch when you wanted books: Silk Touch drops the bookshelf block instead.
- Crafting all your paper into maps first: keep at least 3 paper per book you plan to make.
Where to find leather fast in each biome
Plains, meadows and forests have the most cows and horses, so they are the fastest places to collect leather. Savannas add horses and donkeys, while mountain biomes have llamas. Mushroom fields have mooshrooms, which drop leather just like cows and never spawn hostile mobs nearby. In deserts and snowy plains, rabbits are the most common animal, so collect rabbit hide and craft four of them into one leather. In the Nether, hoglins in crimson forests drop leather too, which is handy if you are building a Nether base.
Tip: keep one book and quill in your base as a coordinate log, so you never lose the location of your villages, portals and farms.