Books aren’t really used for much else unfortunately. You can’t sit at your table and read a book to become smart or anything like in the real world.. lame.
To make a book, you need to make some paper (brilliant!).
Paper is made by placing three pieces of Sugar Cane into the crafting table like in the picture below. Come on, everyone knows that paper is made out of sugar right?
Each combination will result in three sheets of paper. Sugar cane grows in desert biomes, on top of sand blocks.
Once you have some papers, roll up the herbs in it and.. wait, what I meant to say is that you’ll place three pieces into the crafting table like shown in the picture below. Each combination will result in one book.
And there you have it, three pieces of paper = one book. It’s the shortest book I’ve ever seen, but there you go.