Flipping the Pages Through History

Flipping The Pages Through History

Stephen King, an author of many books, once quoted,“Good books don’t give up all their secrets at once.” Each and every book written, published and read has it’s own story with a secret hidden, but what about the history of books? After reading a few books and learning about revolutions throughout history, I wondered how books evolved too. The process of books took many forms as technology and resources increased. A few forms of the first books in history were storytelling, painting, and writing. Each style had its own significance to the many cultures of which the story was created.

The first structures of books were painting and storytelling. Painting may not seem like a story, but if you look closer, the art almost seems like it’s telling a tale. An example where art takes the place of books is cave paintings, almost like a picture book on a stone wall. Besides drawing, storytelling was commonly used as well. In the olden days and even today, people have shared stories verbally. Telling stories in native languages, and passing them through generations of their people. The stories were told from the elderly to young adults and to children. One story that was told was “The Epic of Gilgamesh”. Over time, this story has changed and today, they have a few written copies.

One form of the earliest books made in history is the Bible. It was the first book to be made with parchment paper. Another one of the Bible’s earliest appearance were on paper scrolls. The Bible was full of many stories that happened throughout the beginning of history. An early use of the Bible was in Christian churches. Even the today, the Bible takes an important role not only in Christianity, but in many other religions around the world such as Catholic. Before paper was an available resource, in many places such as ancient Greece, they wrote on stone tablets. They also wrote stories and some of them being about the ancient Greek Gods such as Poseidon, Zeus, Hades and so many more.

After researching about the history of books, I feel like I have found one of the many secrets that books keep. In today's world, our skills have improved and our resources have increased. There are many books to read now in many different genres such as fiction, nonfiction, mystery, fantasy, the categories are countless. Most books nowadays are typed, printed and bound together into what we call books. In the future, I have considered becoming an author and writing many books for anyone of any age. I'm currently writing a novel called "The Shadows We Fear". It's about Victoria, a newly crowned princess, and how she must voyage across the deep blue sea to ask peace of her kingdom from their gods. Victoria also encounters many obstacles along the way. Stories have been such an important piece to human history. If you long to know a secret of books, just keep flipping the pages through history. I’m sure that the stories are hidden somewhere.

Links:

• New York Public Library Time-Lapse- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkD9aNOn6v0
• Book History TimeLine- http://english8.fsu.edu/Courses/ENG4834_S11/Book_History_Timeline.pdf
• The Epic of Gilgamesh- http://www.aina.org/books/eog/eog.pdf
• The Shadows We Fear- https://www.wattpad.com/user/moonbean842