Out of curiosity I looked up “this day in history.” The biggest thing that stuck out to me was that the USA, during WWII, instituted rationing of meat, cheeses, and oil. First off, that sounds like a great diet to me, but secondly- books; yes, rationing books, but still books. It’s amazing how handy they are.
Books also have a sad history in recent times. Not only did people like Huxley and Orwell use books to predict what they thought the future looked like, they also showed us that those words could most definitely be detrimental or beneficial to a society. Nazi Germany saw the danger of freedom of thinking and the power it encouraged in its citizens and it banned certain books and burned others. Zusak did an excellent job of portraying the power of books and of the written word.
Of all the inventions in time books are the most influential. When papyrus was used it would decay over time; animal skin was also used as a writing medium; finally printing presses came into being. Prior to that monks and Jewish scribes, primarily, would devote their lives to transcribing Bible, and other societies had their own scribes to transcribe other books, to keep the written word alive. Without them we might not have the wonderful insights of the battles of Thermopylae or the Punic Wars, or the political and tactical insights of Plato or Marcus Aurelius.
Yes, books really are remarkable things. They can take a sad mood and turn it upside down. They can get you so invested in a character and a story that you are just lost to everything else in the world. At a time like this (and other times for some of us) this is sorely needed.
The hamster in my head is really running hard on his wheel right now as I’m looking at some of my past experiences, and what a wonderful break it is to be able to sit and write, or get lost in a book. My go to right now is mystery, but I have some fabulous older (and newer) Sci-fi that I can’t wait to sink my mental teeth into. I hope you too are filling your free time with some good books; appreciating the past and history of them; enjoying the present, and looking forward to the future of books and stories.