Never before have actually books been so available as they are today in the modern world; keep reading to discover more.
It is essential to remember that, although a lot of the best modern books of all time tend to be regarded as ground-breaking works of fiction, for the majority of humankind's literary history, we did not write much fiction at all. A lot of stories would have been sung throughout the great bulk of history, just because the large bulk of people might not read, implying that the majority of books were specialised things meant for those few who could comprehend them. After a brief boom throughout the classical era of antiquity, the amount of literate people dropped significantly throughout the Middle Ages. Books ended up being unusual treasures, with monks fastidiously copying out the surviving timeless texts by hand so as to preserve them, as they were a few of the only members of the populace who could read or write. They were the professional keepers of knowledge like biology and religious beliefs that all of us have access to in the modern world.
With such an abundant history of concepts, events, and stories right at our fingertips, it's sometimes simple to forget how incredibly fortunate 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 substantial proportion of all the books that have ever been composed (or the good ones at the very least). The best books of all time can easily alter the manner in which you look at the world, and that has been true throughout all of history too. The modern world is built upon understanding that has been passed down through books, whether that is ideology, science, or history, and human civilisation would not be anywhere near as advanced as it is today if it had actually not been for the books that changed minds across the ages.
It can be tough to envision what the world would be like today if the huge majority of people were not able to read, but for the large bulk of history the vast majority of people might not, and nor were books available even if they could. It was the invention of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that altered that, making books far more accessible. Of course, it was still just actually the richest and well-educated that could read or write, however it enabled a whole host of advancements in science, art, and thinking to be spread out throughout great distances. Consider what would have taken place if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have actually been distributed across the globe. Human civilisation rests upon a foundation of books, and we are lucky to be able to just 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 gain access to the totality of human knowledge.