I decided to search online on a history timeline on publishing. According to infoplease.com, it states that the first known publish book, The Diamond Sutra, was produced in 808 in China. As the world progressed, in 1440, Johann Gutenberg, invented a wooden press, and published, a Latin Bible. A couple centuries later publishing became more sophisticated and the first paper book was published in the United States. Fast-forward towards the 1980s, about 70 percent of books bought was paperback and technology was on the rise, publishing became commonly used. Currently, books are now sold through various book chains such as Borders and online retailers. (Amazon) Also, there has been the creation of E-books, which are electronic versions of printed books and can be viewed online. Obviously times have changes since the days of the third century where information was stored on animal skin.

Books have been around for a long time, so why hasn’t it progress to something more advance? For example, if we could burn CD's, why not books? Unlike downloading songs and burning CD's, books are much difficult to copy. Who seriously would sit down and take the time to copy each page of an 800-page book? Not me! Books are just simply convenient and also symbolic. When I was younger one of my favorite books was Hop on Pop, by Dr. Seuss. I can’t stress how many times I read that book. When I was older, I read Hop On Pop to my little cousin, and to my surprise she loved it. I decided to give it to her and hopefully one day she can pass it on to her child. I had lots of books when I was younger and donated most of it to either Goodwill or to underprivileged children. Although, I got rid of most, there is one in particular I decided to keep, a children’s book called Berenstain Bears and the Bad Habit.




I absolutely loved this book and will probably never give it away, unless if its to my children. This book is like one of those “blankeys.” Even though if it’s old and tore up, you still keep it for symbolic reasons.

Even though E-Books have been created, I believe books will always be around. Personally, for myself, E-books are a little too difficult, because I would be reading a whole novel on a computer screen for many hours. Also someone in class brought up an excellent point that E-books sometimes can’t save what page you ended on! That’s a bit ludicrous to me! So no worries everyone, I believe the future of books is secure.