at the back of my book

Pat Boone sang

"Look up your Holy Bible at the back of the book,
The book of Revelations is the place to look....."

It's fine, and quite correct. "At" the back of the book is not the same as "on" the back of the book.
And in any case, that would be described as "on the back cover".

If a piece of paper had been placed between the back cover and the last page, you might be able to say it was "in" the back of the book.

Thank you, Mctag and Contrex~

In collo, WB, either way is probably okay. However I might have said "pages of notes" or even "notes pages"

So I asked my Better Half, who as you might suspect is much smarter than I, and she replied, "There are 300 pages of notes at the back of the book"

Thank you Dale~
====================
-The book has a picture of Peking on the front.

What does it mean? On the front cover of the book or in the first few pages?

Also, by analogy, can I say this?:

-In/at the front of the book are some photos. (=not the cover, but the first pages)

On the front = on the front cover.



At the front = in the first pages.

Thank you, Contrex

If you want to see more, you have to peek in.

"Picture of Peking" leaves one puzzled, this one at least. However I inquired of my BH, who as most everyone will surely agree is much smarter than I, and she responded, "I don't see anything wrong with it"

Thus it probably means an aerial photo on the cover

Photos by analogy WB, yes

I don't see why you are puzzled, Dale. Are you imagining a picture of Peking has to show the whole city? At least where I come from, "a picture of a Peking scene" and a "picture of Peking" are broadly interchangeable.

A "picture of Peking":



A "picture of London":

Well yes Con that was my immediate reaction so again I consulted my BH, who as I mentioned is a lot smarter than me, tho perhaps not than thou, who remarked, "If not the whole city, at least part of it." But then when I asked about your single building, she opined, "Well, no."

I feel compelled to add, however, "The book has a picture of Peking on the front" in a narrow technical sense under one meaning of "of," of said "of," yes, of that "of," but not I think of most of us here

Dale, I believe I am, at least partly, coming around to your point of view, but with some reservations. I agree that most often when we talk about a "picture of" something, we mean a picture in which that "something" is what was intended to be depicted; although our knowledge of that intention may be a matter of deduction. I have just looked at what I could call a "picture of me". It also includes a tree, a brick wall, an automobile, and a portion of the sky. Likewise a "picture of the Eiffel Tower" is likely to contain an arbitrary number of Parisian buildings, tourists, etc. (This is getting into a certain kind of philosophical territory that I know nothing about). A "picture of London" is likely to present a certain number of a similarl difficulties - not least of which what do we mean by "London"? Greater London, the administrative area covering 607 square miles? The somewhat greater built-up area extending beyond the boundaries into surrounding counties? (Beijing Municipality covers 6,487 sq miles) To take a photograph of all of London, let alone Beijing would require a spacecraft rather than a plane.

I think you guys are over-working this. I am a picture of dejection.

Doubtless

But why