Overview
An Enchanted Book holds one or more enchantments in a form you can apply to any compatible item on an anvil, and that indirection is what makes it the most valuable item class in the game. Rolling Mending on a table is impossible — it is one of the treasure enchantments that only exist as books — so Mending, Frost Walker, Soul Speed, Swift Sneak, Curse of Binding and Curse of Vanishing all reach your gear through this item and no other. Librarian villagers are the practical supply: lock a librarian to a lectern until it offers the enchantment you want, and it will sell that book repeatedly for emeralds, which is far cheaper and far more reliable than gambling thirty levels at a table. Fishing, dungeon, mineshaft, stronghold and ancient city loot also produce them. On the anvil, each application raises the item's prior-work penalty, so combine books together first and apply the finished result once — that ordering is the difference between a full enchantment set and a Too Expensive message. Buying the enchantment is nearly always cheaper than rolling for it.
Applying enchantments — including Mending, Swift Sneak and Soul Speed, which no enchanting table can produce — to any compatible tool, weapon or armour piece.
Enchanted Book is a crafting material item in Minecraft Java Edition 1.21.4. It is unstackable. Look for it in the loot of Village, Desert Pyramid, Jungle Pyramid, Pillager Outpost and 8 more.
It is not used in any crafting recipe.
How to get it
Buy from a librarian villager for 5 to 64 emeralds depending on the enchantment, enchant a plain book at a table, or find them in dungeon, mineshaft, stronghold and ancient city loot.
Tips
- Combine books with each other on the anvil first, then apply the result once, to keep the prior-work cost down.
- Lock a librarian to a lectern by breaking and replacing the lectern until the trade you want appears.
- Mending is book-only: no enchanting table will ever roll it, regardless of level or bookshelf count.
- Read anvil mechanics and Too Expensive before combining a full set of books.
Properties
Enchanted Book does not stack — each one occupies an inventory slot of its own.
- Stack size
- 1
- Category
- Materials
Found in
Enchanted Book is in the loot tables of Village, Desert Pyramid, Jungle Pyramid, Pillager Outpost, Woodland Mansion, Ocean Ruins and 2 more.
- Village — Villages generate in five architectural variants — plains, desert, savanna, taiga and snowy — each built from local materials with its own house shapes, and the variant is fixed by the biome of the village centre even if it sprawls across a border.
- Desert Pyramid — A sandstone temple with an orange-and-blue terracotta motif on its floor, always with a hidden shaft under the centre tile.
- Jungle Pyramid — A mossy cobblestone temple buried in jungle canopy, and the only structure in the game built around an actual redstone puzzle.
- Pillager Outpost — A dark oak watchtower flying an ominous banner, surrounded by tents, log piles, and often a cage holding an iron golem or, beneath the tower, cages containing allays.
- Woodland Mansion — An enormous three-storey house of dark oak and cobblestone, generated only in dark forests and typically tens of thousands of blocks from spawn, which makes a woodland explorer map from a cartographer villager the practical way to find one.
- Ocean Ruins — Scattered clusters of sunken buildings, in a sandstone warm-water variant and a stone cold-water variant.
- Stronghold — A sprawling underground maze of stone brick corridors, spiral staircases, storerooms, prison cells and libraries, and the only place the End portal exists.
- Abandoned Mineshaft — Long branching wooden corridors with rails, minecarts, support beams and floating sections over ravines and caves.
Guides and tools that cover this
Frequently asked questions
How do you make Enchanted Book in Minecraft?
Enchanted Book has no crafting recipe; it is obtained from mobs, chests or trading.
What is the stack size of Enchanted Book?
Enchanted Book does not stack at all. Every one you carry takes an inventory slot of its own, which is the practical limit on how many you take on a trip.
