Books – PaperBack

Books as a source of entertainment is, relatively speaking, quite a recent thing. In the past, the costs of producing paper, or other media to write upon, were quite prohibitive and only religious texts, or such, would be mass-produced. The invention of modern paper and ink was the first step towards the creation of an industry around books. Technological advancements and an increase in world literacy helped making books a source of entertainment. It was in the medieval ages that book industry really came into being, although it was limited mostly to the Arab countries.

It was around the year 1450 that Johannes Gutenberg invented a type of printing method, called movable type, in Europe that made books less expensive to produce. Other than mechanization, the method of printing remained largely unchanged till early 20th century. It was in the 20th century that a technique called offset-lithography was developed. This is the technique that is used now. However, with the emergence of e-books and kindle, paper books might become obsolete in future.