Our capability to gain access to and read books has been absolutely crucial to our ability to understand the world around us.
It can be difficult to imagine what the world would resemble today if the vast majority of individuals were not able to read, but for the large bulk of history the huge majority of people might not, and nor were books available even if they could. It was the innovation of the printing press towards the close of the 15th that altered that, making books far more available. Of course, it was still only actually the wealthiest and well-educated that could read or write, but it made it possible for a whole host of advancements in science, art, and thinking to be spread out throughout great distances. Consider what would have happened if the theory of gravity, or of evolution, could not have been distributed around the world. Human civilisation rests upon a structure 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.
It is essential to keep in mind that, although a lot of the best modern books of all time tend to be regarded as ground-breaking works of fiction, for most of humankind's literary history, we did not compose much fiction at all. The majority of stories would have been sung throughout the great majority of history, just since the large bulk of individuals might not read, meaning that many books were specialised things meant for those few who could comprehend them. After a quick boom throughout the classical period of antiquity, the amount of literate individuals dropped significantly throughout the Middle Ages. Books ended up being uncommon treasures, with monks fastidiously copying out the surviving classic texts by hand so as to preserve them, as they were some of the only members of the populace who could read or write. They were the expert keepers of knowledge like biology and religious beliefs that all of us have access to in the modern-day world.
With such an abundant history of concepts, occasions, and stories right at our fingertips, it's often simple to forget how exceptionally lucky 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 huge proportion of all the books that have ever been written (or the good ones at least). The best books of all time can easily change the way that you take a look at the world, which has actually held true throughout all of history too. The modern-day world is built on understanding that has actually been passed down through books, whether that is philosophy, science, or history, and human civilisation would not be anywhere near as advanced as it is today if it had not been for the books that changed minds across the ages.