This paper investigates the problem of embedding planar graphs in books of few pages. An efficient algorithm for embedding a planar graph in a book establishes an upper bound of seven pages for any planar graph. This disproves a conjecture of Bernhart and Kainen that the pagenumber of a planar graph can be arbitrarily large. It is also shown that the stellations of K/sub 3/ have pagenumber three, the best possible.