Forget what you think you know about ebooks starting with the Kindle. Marie Lebert's book takes us back to the very beginning, to the 1970s, when the dream of digital text was born in university labs and among passionate volunteers.

The Story

This isn't a dry tech timeline. It's a collection of stories about the pioneers. We meet Michael Hart, who typed the Declaration of Independence into a computer in 1971, founding Project Gutenberg with the wild idea of giving away books for free. We follow the early adopters—librarians digitizing catalogs, scholars building the first online archives, and programmers creating the formats we barely think about today. The book shows how this scattered, idealistic movement slowly built the foundation for the ebook world we now take for granted.

Why You Should Read It

I loved this because it puts the humanity back into our digital tools. It’s easy to see a Kindle as just another gadget. This book reminds you that it’s the endpoint of a 50-year social mission. It’s genuinely inspiring to read about people working for free, for years, just because they believed in universal access to knowledge. It made me appreciate my local digital library and all those free public domain classics in a whole new way.

Final Verdict

Perfect for curious readers who love books and technology, but are tired of stories focused only on billionaires and corporate battles. If you've ever downloaded a free classic or wondered about the history behind your e-reader, this is your origin story. It’s a short, compelling tribute to the nerds and idealists who built the future one painstakingly typed page at a time.