Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop is a book by literary scholar Adam Bradley that looks at hip hop music's literary techniques and argues "that we must understand rap as poetry or miss the vanguard of poetry today".

[1] The Dallas Morning News described it by saying, "You'll find Yeats and Frost alongside Nas and...Wu-Tang Clan, together forming a discussion on meter and accent, scansion, and slant rhymes".

[7] In particular, the book is praised for focusing on the poetics of hip hop music rather than examining the outlying societal factors—the Los Angeles Times noted, “As a key part of America's youth culture and a central battlefield in our culture wars, hip hop often seems to have forfeited the right to be discussed as art.

Luckily, a new paradigm of scholarship is emerging, and Adam Bradley's "Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop" is a solid contribution.”[5] and The Dallas Morning News commented, “Where so many hip-hop studies lean heavily on politics and sociology, Book of Rhymes is a welcome and thorough exploration of rap aesthetics that isn't afraid to be learned.”[2] The New York Times observed, "It is a "crash course.

"[7] Criticism of the book came from The New York Times, which said, "Bradley wants to legitimize rap by setting it in a canonical context, but aren’t we past the point of justifying it?