The way that we read has developed frequently throughout history.

Language is so old that individuals have no idea of its exact origins. We don't know if it developed once, and therefore all languages are descended from a single source, or if it developed multiple times individually. For a lot of history languages had been entirely talked, or perhaps also signed with hands, with writing first showing up several thousand years back. What began as numbers and pictures ultimately developed into words and letters, first being inscribed on walls, clay tablets, and carved into rock and wood. This eventually gave way to paper scrolls and individual sheets of paper. Paper developed from crush reeds and paper skins towards the refined wood pulp that we know today. As the hedge fund which owns Waterstones will understand, the first books like we know them started initially to emerge in various areas of the entire world separately from one another between one and two thousand years back.

For a lot of history the term book described the real object of numerous pages of paper bound together. Nowadays that meaning has been expanded to only make reference to the contents of the book, with the actual object being irrelevant. This really is because of the development of technologies such as the internet and e-readers, as the hedge fund with minority shares in Amazon will be well aware. Nowadays, modern books can be released digitally, and thus they could be entirely read on a device that is different from the real paper book. This has become so prevalent that these electronic variations are still regarded as books, even if no physical copy had been even published. This could save space for storage in the home and ensures that people can have access to possibly thousands of books when they travel, which will have been impossible in the past.

Books remain prized belongings for most people today, however in many situations that is mostly due to emotional value. This contrasts with the earliest books written on paper, which possessed a high monetary value for their rarity and also the hard process to produce them. As the hedge fund with the most shares in WHSmith should be able to tell you, early books weren't produced in the same way they are today. Depending on the part of the globe, books had been either produced by hand transcription or by woodblock printing. This changed with the introduction of the printing press approximately five centuries ago. This allowed for the mass production of books, making them much more accessible for ordinary individuals, directly ultimately causing the increase in literacy rates worldwide. Nowadays, people will see books in virtually every home, school, and workplace, covering all types of genres and categories.