As man evolved from apes, books also come from something else.

Books were invented for one to transmit and conserve important information. History shows that before the existence of books, there were other means of preserving information.  In China fro example, they use brushes for writing and silk as a base instead of paper. Other materials uses as bases were bones, bronze, pottery, shells, dried leaves, etc. And the very first medium of writing as resemblance to books was a piece of wood.

In the ancient Iraq (former Mesopotamia), they use clay tablets, where preserved information were printed on its surface while it was first moist.

Romans used wax-coated wooden tablets upon which they could write notes fro their everyday purposes.

In ancient Egypt, evidence showed that papyrus(volumen in Latin language) was used for writing. They were in the form of scroll pasted together up to 10 meters in length or even more. Unlike the conventional books of today, texts in papyrus books occupied only one side and were divided into columns. The title is attached separately on the cylinder containing the book. It looked as if it were a label instead of a title.

Image via Wikipedia

After so many years, papyrus was replaced with the so-called parchment. Parchments were more advanced compared to papyrus and could be conserved over time because they were made of animal skins (sheep, cattle, antelope, donkey, etc.). It was more solid and rare. That is why, it was very expensive.

Between second and fourth century, codex was invented to replace the scroll. The book was no longer a continuous scroll but a collection of separate sheets attached at the back. This became the very first basis of what the book of today looks like. Also, paper was then used instead of parchments.

Then from books, we now have the so called e-books. Originally, a computer is used to read e-books. Then, they became very accessible with the advent of cellphones particularly the i-phones. And recently, a new gadget was introduced called reader touch, which allows one to have thousands of books at our hands.