book
book Primarily a bound volume of printed pages, it may also be a division within a book (as in the Bible) or a statement of accounts. The earliest books were Egyptian writings on papyrus, of which the Book of the Dead is often considered the first. Roman books were mostly in the form of rolls, although the Roman period also saw the emergence of the codex, the forerunner of the paged book. In the Middle Ages, vellum, a fine parchment made from animal skin, became the standard material for books, but by the 15th century they were often written on paper. Modern printed books date to c.1454, when Gutenberg conceived of using moveable type (developed earlier in China and Korea) in conjunction with early forms of the printing press. The first printed book was a German Latin Bible (1455).
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