7 Lessons From Papyrus on How Books Began
22 Feb 2026 #booksWhen you hear the word “book,” what comes to mind?
A cover, back cover, and spine? Sheets of paper bound to flip from left to right? Printing machines?
Books are recent, but their fascinating origins stretch back thousands and thousands of years. That’s precisely what Irene Vallejo tells us in Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World.
Here are 7 lessons I took away from this book:
#1. Kids didn’t learn with easy books.
My dad bought my sister a book with Franklin the turtle every time she won an exam. Like her, we grew up reading books for kids: easy sentences filled with images.
But kids in Ancient Greece didn’t have easy books. They learned with the Iliad and Odyssey by Homer. To make things worse, ancient Greek didn’t have spaces, paragraphs, or punctuation marks…and teachers were ruthless.
#2. Book copyists worked for centuries.
In Athens, getting a book meant sending someone to Alexandria, Egypt to copy it. Sometimes I complain when it takes a month to receive a book.
#3. Titles, binding, and pocket books are recent inventions.
For centuries, we had rolls instead of books.
To read a scroll, you rolled it with your left hand while unrolling it with your right one. When finished, you rolled it back up as a courtesy for the next reader. Instead of titles, librarians categorized books by their opening sentences.
#4. Books were read out loud.
In school, I learned to read sitting in a circle taking turns to read a passage from an easy story. Then, we had to do it in silence.
But in ancient times, reading out loud was the norm. Reading a book was like a small prayer, a soft monologue.
#5. Iliad and Odyssey were best-sellers.
Probably every educated citizen in Ancient Times knew about them. Even kids learned to read with them.
#6. Education included the body as well as the mind.
Apart from reading, men had to work on their bodies as part of their education. A privilege reserved for higher classes and free men. Slaves were meant only for manual labor.
To strengthen their bodies, men trained outdoors or in gymnasiums showing off their bodies…while naked. Next time you see some “bros” posing and taking selfies in front of a mirror after lifting some weights at the gym, remember it used to be worse in ancient times.
#7. Books won’t die.
Books haven’t always looked the same: clay, stone, leather, papyrus, codices, paper… But they have endured the test of time. eBooks, summaries, TikTok, or AI aren’t a real threat for books. We’ve had them for centuries. And we will for more.