What is a book?

Sometimes things pop up in my mind and I feel an urge to write about it. For example, I have many books around here, but what actually is a book? You could say that it is a bundle of paper with a text printed on the paper. I think that this is rather to the point. However, also a magazine, a journal or a newspaper is a bundle of paper with text and nevertheless we don’t call it a book. Actually, this difference is not so important for me. In antiquity books were written on scrolls and still they are called books. Moreover, some magazines and journals are also almost like books. The only difference with a book is that they belong to a series of regularly published bundles of texts. On the other hand, sometimes books are part of a series and nevertheless we call them books.
But I am moving in the wrong direction, for the difference between books, magazines, newspapers etc. is not what really interests me. What I actually find intriguing is that books, magazines, etc. are material objects and texts at the same time. Or rather, a book has a text: blots of ink that have a meaning for us. I’ll ignore for this blog magazines, newspaper, etc. but in fact “book” and “text” are alternative expressions for the same. For there is more in a book than just texts that makes a book a book: There may be pictures, a book has always a cover (true: newspapers don’t have it), and so there are other text-like characteristics that make a book a book. But what is interesting now is that a book is a material thing – mainly paper – and that a book has also a meaning, which is mainly expressed by the text in the strict sense. In a book, material and mind come together.
When you think about it carefully, it is intriguing that material and the immaterial, matter and mind are combined in a book. How is this possible? Seen this way, the question suggests that a book has or consists of two different substances and that they come together in some way: They touch. But how? For Descartes, in humans mind and body interact or “touch” in the pineal gland in the brain. Should there also be such a pineal gland in a book? Maybe the letters? But there are many letters in a book. Where then and how do the two substances of the book, so the paper and the meaning, come together? I can go on and try to answer this question, but I think it is the wrong question. The question “How do the paper (the material) and the meaning (immaterial) in a book ‘touch’” supposes already that there are two substances that touch in a book in some way. What matter is and what mind is are difficult questions, but I think, however, that somehow they are alike. Matter and mind are different ways in which the “stuff” in the world can be organized but basically they are made of the same “stuff”, whatever it is or however we should imagine it. Matter and mind are rather ways of structuring the stuff (= the substance that basically makes up the world) than that they are two different stuffs. (This suggests that other ways to structure stuff, besides matter and mind, are also possible).
What does this mean for my question “what is a book”? We can say now that a book is a bundle of paper to which something (a text in the proper sense) that someone had in mind is added, and that this would suggest that a book consists of two substances (“stuffs”). Nevertheless, for some – like printers, publishers or booksellers – a book is merely a paper object (so mere matter), and for others – like philosophers and their readers, unless when they are moving their bookcases – it is the printed thoughts that make a book. Some see a book as a bundle of paper and others see it as a bundle of thoughts. Since a book consists of one substance, we can also say: Some are interested in other aspects of the substance “book” than others. Some are interested in a book as matter and others are interested in a book as mind. In other words, a book has two aspects, matter and mind, and it depends on your perspective which aspect is interesting to you. And maybe (if there are more ways to structure the bookish stuff) there are other aspects as well. But isn’t the whole mind-body duality – so the mind-body-distinction – not more than a question of different aspects? Doesn’t this distinction simply depend on your perspective so on the kind of questions you ask?