Papyrus - by Irene Vallejo

A long book that took me - a slow reader - quite a while. But it was well worth the effort.

Ultimately it is a history book, so there was much for me to learn. Although it is the story of written language and the book, there is so much more. There are lots of transitions: spoken language to written; hieroglyphs to an alphabet; Greek culture to Roman; Greek language to Latin; scrolls to books; copying to printing.

I was enlightened by the understanding of how reading has morphed and how Greek and Roman empires were related. For a long time I have believed that the most significant human invention was the Internet, but I am now beginning to join the school of thought that says it was printing that changed the world most of all.

Almost every page of those book seemed to have a new fact to teach me or a profound insight into a matter to which had scarcely given a thought.