Picture Book is the debut album by British pop group Simply Red, released in October 1985. It contains the #1 single "Holding Back the Years", the band's most successful single, and a cover of The Valentine Brothers' "Money's Too Tight (To Mention)". Three other singles were released from the album: "Come to My Aid", "Jericho", and "Open Up the Red Box". The album includes 'lively' and 'energetic' groove beats and ballad orientated keyboard undertones that help songs such as "Holding Back the Years" to be so effective. Members Tim Kellett and Fritz McIntyre are acclaimed by Hucknall to be the most influential in the album based on the distinctive sound of their playing.

The album is included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. The album helped Simply Red earn a 1987 Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. "Holding Back The Years" was also nominated for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocals.

The album has been commercially successful, appearing in the top 30 album charts of 12 different countries, and achieving platinum certification sales in four different countries, including America and the UK.

Robert Christgau felt there were only two good songs on the album, "Money’s Too Tight (to Mention)" and "Heaven", but that Hucknall and the band carry off the album "on mood and groove alone".

William Ruhlmann in a retrospective review in Allmusic felt that Simply Red produced "a steady R&B groove reminiscent of '60s Stax house band the MG's" and that Hucknall was a "big-voiced soul singer".

Andy Robbins, in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, writes that the album was led by the blue-eyed soul of the Valentine Brothers' song "Money’s Too Tight (To Mention)", though he feels that its commercial success in both America and the UK was due to Hucknall's own song, "Holding Back The Years" – the vocal performance of which he feels that Hucknall has never managed to equal. As well as soul, Robbins feels that the album also contains rock influenced songs in "Look At You Now" and "No Direction", and jazz influenced songs in "Sad Old Red" and "Heaven".

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