Jessica Gössl

Wherever you're listening now, there's a good chance there's a book nearby.

On your bedside table, perhaps.

Or in your bag.

Books are now so common, filling up our shelves and surfaces, that it's easy to take their presence for granted.

But it hasn't always been this way.

Not so long ago, books belonged to the most privileged members of society.

And the book as we think of it, a collection of paper pages, is a relatively recent invention.

Tonight, we'll go right back to the beginning.

We'll trace the history of this now ubiquitous object, discovering how it shaped our world and minds.

So just relax and let your mind drift.

as we explore the sleepy history of books.

Before books could exist, writing had to be invented.

This was an innovation that would change the world, allowing the preservation and diffusion of all kinds of knowledge.

The earliest forms of writing, proto-writing, date back to the 7th millennium BCE.

That's about 9,000 years ago.

Intriguing examples have been found in China and parts of Europe.

symbols carved into clay, tortoiseshells, and other materials, which seemed to communicate certain concepts.

However, writing systems wouldn't emerge until much later.

A writing system represents elements of a spoken language in a systematic way.

It's a more sophisticated, complete form of communication than proto-writing.