What is an enchanted book?
According to the Minecraft Wiki, an enchanted book is an item which allows players to add enchantments to weapons, tools, or armor by combining the enchantment book with one of said items on an anvil.
Can they receive any enchantment?
Testing in creative and survival mode shows that books can receive any enchantment that a normal weapon/armor/tool/other can receive. An easy way to check is to go into creative mode and use the new search function to search for the term book. This will show you what all the enchanted books are.
Can they receive more than one enchantment?
According to the wiki, books may only have one enchantment. This can be tested by giving yourself a bunch of books and enchanting them, then throwing them into lava or whatever you wish to do with them.
Since enchantments have different chances of occurring for different tools, materials, and at different levels, how are those probabilities different for books?
This would be different for books since books are not diamond swords. However, this would have that many variables because unlike a sword, books can only be made from paper. Swords can be made from diamonds, iron, and other materials. You would have to test this to truly know, but if John tells us how many levels he invested into his enchanted books, we might be able to know. Right now, though, it appears that the enchantment gives you the highest level (ex. Protection IV, Sharpness IV, etc.)
Best Answer
No, it is not possible. When you go into the NBT file database, you can change the level, by inserting the level you want. The way it is accessed is that it puts the level like this: "enchantment.level.[level]". If it recognizes the level and the enchantment as useable, it converts it to something like "knockback V". If you put a different letter in, it will default to no enchantment. This includes the "-" character, so if you put -1 in it will come out as "enchantment.level.-1" which it cannot recognize, therefore nothing special happens when you use the sword.
It would be pretty cool, though! :D