The Minecraft book recipe is more useful than you might think! Books aren’t just for reading—they help you enchant gear, trade with villagers, and build bookshelves. In this guide, we’ll cover how to craft books, their uses, and why they’re essential for upgrading your Minecraft world.

5 reasons to craft books in Minecraft

A book in Minecraft is a basic yet essential item used in crafting, enchanting, and trading. While books themselves don’t have any immediate effects, they will help you to:

• Create enchantment tables to enchant weapons, tools, and armor.
• Craft bookshelves to improve your enchanting power.
• Make enchanted books to apply powerful enchantments.
• Write in books using a Book and Quill.

• Trade with Librarian villagers for valuable resources.

Without books, upgrading your Minecraft experience would be much harder.

Minecraft book recipe: How to make a book in Minecraft

To craft a book in Minecraft, you will need the following materials:

• 3 Paper (crafted from Sugar Cane)
• 1 Leather (dropped by cows, llamas, or obtained from fishing)

How to craft a book in Minecraft

Sugar cane is used to craft paper, a key ingredient in making books. You can find sugar cane growing near bodies of water such as rivers, lakes, and oceans. Consider starting a sugar cane farm if you plan on crafting multiple books.

Once you have at least three sugar cane, open your crafting table and place them in a horizontal row. This will create three pieces of paper.

Leather is the second ingredient required for making books. You can obtain leather by killing cows and llamas.

• Cows drop 0-2 leather (more with the Looting enchantment).
• Llamas drop 0-2 leather and are mainly found in taiga biomes.

Once you have paper and leather, you can craft a book. Open your crafting table or survival inventory crafting grid and place:

• 1 Leather 
• 3 Paper 

After placing the items in the correct pattern, move the book into your inventory.

What can you do with books?

Now that you have a book, here are some ways to use it:

Book and Quill Minecraft recipe

A Book and Quill in Minecraft allows players to write, edit, and store text, making it useful for notes, journals, or creating adventure maps. To craft a Book and Quill, you need:

• 1 Book (crafted from 3 Paper + 1 Leather)
• 1 Ink Sac (dropped by squids)
• 1 Feather  (dropped by chickens or parrots)

How to make a Book and Quill in Minecraft

• Open the Crafting Table (3×3 crafting grid).
• Place 1 Ink Sac in the center slot.
• Place 1 Book in in the center left slot.
• Place 1 Feather in the bottom center slot.

Drag the Book and Quill into your inventory.

Bookshelf recipe

Used for increasing the power of an Enchanting Table or as decoration. Here are the required materials:

• 3 Books 
• 6 Wooden Planks (any type)

Enchanting Table recipe 

You can use it to enchant weapons, armor, and tools. But you should get these to craft it first:

• 1 Book 
• 2 Diamonds 
• 4 Obsidian 

Placing a book in an Enchanting Table lets you create Enchanted Books, which can store enchantments for later use with an Anvil. 

You will need a Chiseled Bookshelf for storage

A Chiseled Bookshelf can store up to 6 books, including regular, enchanted, and written books, allowing for easy access, organization, and interactive redstone mechanics in your Minecraft builds. Required materials:

• 6 Wooden Planks (any type)
• 3 Wooden Slabs

How many books for 15 bookshelves in Minecraft?

To craft 15 bookshelves, you need 45 books. You also need 90 wooden planks. Each bookshelf takes 3 books and 6 planks. To craft 45 books, you need 45 leather and 135 paper. Paper comes from sugar cane. You need 3 sugar cane to make 3 paper. So, you must collect 405 sugar cane in total.

You can find sugar cane near water. You can also grow it on dirt or sand next to water. Leather comes from cows. You can kill cows or start a small cow farm. This helps you get leather faster. Once you gather all materials, use a crafting table. First, craft books using 1 leather and 3 paper. Then craft bookshelves using 3 books and 6 wooden planks.

Why am I not getting level 30 enchants with 15 bookshelves?

People mostly forget about three common th’ngs/ Here they are:

• Wrong bookshelf placement: Bookshelves must be one block away from the enchantment table. They must form a square around it. If the distance is wrong, they won’t work.
• Blocks in the way: Any block between the bookshelves and the table, like torches or slabs, can break the setup.
• Not enough XP levels: You must have at least 30 experience levels. Without enough XP, level 30 enchantments will not appear.

How many bookshelves for level 50?

Minecraft enchantments stop at level 30. Adding more than 15 bookshelves does not unlock higher levels.