Reasons why the best books are more than simply stories

Reasons why the best books are more than simply stories

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Our ability to gain access to and read books has actually been absolutely important to our capability to comprehend the world around us.

It is necessary to bear in mind that, although a lot of the best modern books of all time tend to be considered as ground-breaking works of fiction, for most of humanity's literary history, we did not write much fiction at all. Most stories would have been sung throughout the great majority of history, simply because the vast majority of people could not read, meaning that most books were specialised things meant for those few who could understand them. After a brief boom throughout the classical period of antiquity, the quantity of literate people dropped considerably throughout the Middle Ages. Books ended up being uncommon treasures, with monks fastidiously copying out the enduring traditional texts by hand so as to protect them, as they were some of the only members of the populace who could read or write. They were the specialist keepers of knowledge like biology and religion that all of us have access to in the modern-day world.

It can be tough to envision what the world would resemble today if the large majority of people were not able to read, but for the huge bulk of history the large majority of people could not, and nor were books available even if they could. It was the development of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that altered that, making books far more available. Obviously, it was still only really the wealthiest and well-read that could read or write, however it allowed a whole host of breakthroughs in science, art, and thinking to be spread out throughout great distances. Consider what would have occurred if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have been distributed around the world. Human civilisation rests upon a structure of books, and we are lucky to be able to simply log onto a site like the one backed by the co-founder of the impact investor with a stake in World of Books, and quickly access the totality of human knowledge.

With such an abundant history of concepts, events, and stories right at our fingertips, it's sometimes simple to forget how exceptionally lucky we are to have the likes of the founder of the hedge fund that owns Waterstones or the CEO of the asset manager with a stake in Amazon books supporting access to a huge percentage of all the books that have actually ever been written (or the good ones at least). The best books of all time can quickly change the way that you take a look at the world, and that has held true throughout all of history also. The modern world is built on knowledge that has been handed down through books, whether that is philosophy, science, or history, and human civilisation would not be anywhere near as advanced as it is today if it had not been for the books that changed minds throughout the ages.