There is almost a silently concealed rush of excitement as you walk out of a bookstore after purchasing a brand-new book of your choice. The shine of its laminated cover, its crisp pages, its uncracked spine, and its sweet smell – everything is just MESMERIZING for any book lover.
The world of publishing has evolved over several centuries – articulation of written words on a stack of papers bound by thread along the edges in ancient Greece was only a significant start.
The invention of the printing press brought about the real revolution in the publishing ecosystem. In the mid-1400s, Johannes Gutenberg invented the first movable printing machine. This mechanised the process, which earlier involved writing of manuscripts by hand, to produce sharp impressions on paper repeatedly.
The book has seen significant changes in terms of paper, ink type, fonts, spine and binding in the course of its history, but of greater importance is what this has meant for the world.