h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thinking about it, I can't think of anything that is a better invention than books. Apart from drainage. And education.

Alright, apart from drainage and education... and perhaps medicine, there's nothing better than books. They even make sliced bread look tawdry and predictable!

Books without the written word would be a bit boring.

I have a book on which are written no words (or had, last time I saw it was two houses ago, but I would never under any circumstances have thrown it out). It is what is called in the printing trade a "size book" - this is where the requisite number of pages are bound together and covered to determine the amount of material required to create the print run. Vital if you intend to print 50,000 books and don't have time to pop out to the shops if you run out of that particular colour of leather binding (or cheap cardboard, the principle is the same).

Mine is a size book for the complete works of Oscar Wilde and has a lovely blue leather binding, hundreds and hundreds of blank pages and is just crying out for someone to write, using pefect penmanship, their life story.

However as my six year old writes more neatly than I, and my life story, while interesting enough to me while it was happening would be a waste of a good hardback, my size book remains pristine.