“The artist’s books fascinate and attract us. They lure us by their simplicity and enchant by their versatility. The artist’s book – a combination of idea and matter, flowing like a mountain river, and polyhedral stones at its bottom, – all the forms of the earthly materiality. The book as the transmitter of cultural information, gone through its ups and downs in the course of centuries, returns to life in the shape of a artist’s book like a Phoenix from its ashes and starts to shine not due to the fancifulness of the text or splendid illustrations and the fascinating cover, attracting the reader’s eye, but due to its conceptuality, and manifolds diversity of the forms. The artist’s book – a phenomenon. ” Reference: vasiliunas.arts.lt.
Or
“Artists’ books are books or book-like objects over the final appearance of which an artist has had a high degree of control; where the book is intended as a work of art in itself.” Stephen Bury. Reference: Artists’ Books: The Book As a Work of Art, 1963–1995, Bury, Scolar Press, 1995.
Or
A Discussion held on the Book_Arts-L listserv
March 1998. Reference: philobiblon.com/whatisabook.shtml