So, What are we looking at?
"The Bible" is a book, comprised of 66 books, that can be broken up into different sections:
In its most basic form, you have what's called the The Old Testament, (also know as the Tanakh), and the New Testament;(or the Diathéké)

Beyond that, These two sections can be divided up further:
In the Old Testament, we have The Torah, The Prophets, and the "Writings": (The Torah is the first 5 books, Meaning "instruction", or "Law"), The Prophets, are all the stories about the prophets, And the writings are basically the miscellania (That dont fit into the other two sections),
In the "New Testament"; we have the Gospels; (The accounts of the life of Jesus (Titled: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)), The Epistles (Various letters, to various people, about various things;), and Prophecy (The book of Revelation), about things still to come:

There is a distinction to be made as one reads the text; just because something's "In the bible", doesnt mean it's "Gospel" *So to speak*.
Sometimes God's speaking directly (The Prophets), sometimes people are writing their opinions, (The epistles) and sometimes people are just saying day to day things; (i.e. "What's for lunch?", or "Let's go up the mountain."etc, etc.).
it's impotant to understand *What the bible is* should one want to really understand it and learn from it.