Books-The Last Chapter ?.

Books have always had their enemies of course.The kings and churches always tried to suppress the books they disapproved of because they were afraid they would undermine their authority.With the invention of the printing press this became harder to do and once it was known that a book had been banned there would naturally be a demand by some to read it.By the 19th century freedom of the press seemed assured in many countries.However in the 20th century the regimes of those such as Hitler and Stalin destroyed countless books and their authors. Nevertheless the printed bound paper book was obviously to most people to be a permanent artifact of civilization.The science fiction story by Ray Bradbury Fahrenheit  451 depicted a world in which books were banned and burned by a special brigade of firemen.This was actually mentioned in the Alan Yentob film which set me writing on this topic and a clip from the 1960s film by Francois Truffaut was shown in it.This prescient work seemed very far fetched and unlikely when people people first read it back in the 1950s and 60s and yet we seem to be living to see some of its predictions come true.The television screens which cover the entire walls of rooms for example.It appears that very thin pliable screens are now being developed which will be able to do just that.