I am still quite fresh at this software but im working on a fantasy style game book and I was curious as to the possibility of including some kind of log or encyclopedia that would hold interesting bits of information about characters/items/creatures/places etc as the player discovers them (even if its just scripted to appear at certain points in the story) and that the player can look at at any time and easily return to the page they were on.

Is this possible within Quest?

yes, for both Text Adventure and Game Book, albiet you're more limited in coding options within the Game Book, though the Game Book's Page Objects will probably work (more) nicely for such a 'pedia' feature/effect of your game.

in the Game Book, you only have two Objects to work with, so for your Attributes' Objects, you only got:

the 'player' Player Object and the 'game' Game Object

here's an example:

'whatever' Page Object -> 'Page' Tab -> Page Type: [script] or [script+text] -> (see below)

add new script -> 'output' section/category -> 'print a message' Script -> (see below, repeat as needed)

print [EXPRESSION] "Name: " + player.alias
print [EXPRESSION] "Strength: " + player.strength

add new script -> 'scripts' section/category -> 'if' Script -> (see below)

if [EXPRESSION] game.forest_discovered

-> then, -> add new script ->  'output' section/category ->  'print a message' Script -> (see below, repeat as needed)

print [EXPRESSION] "Forest Description: " + game.forest_description

etc etc etc

-----------------------------

<game name="example_game">
  <attr name="forest_discovered" type="boolean">false</attr>
  <attr name="forest_description" type="string">blah blah blah</attr>
</game>

<object name="player">
  <attr name="alias" type="string">HK</attr>
  <attr name="strength" type="int">100</attr>
</object>

How to do a log:
https://github.com/ThePix/quest/wiki/Keeping-a-Journal

Or you can do an encyclopedia using the conversation library, if using the off-line editor.
https://github.com/ThePix/quest/wiki/Conversations:-Library