Short answers, pulled from the story.
Archaeologists uncovered Jiahu symbols in graves that are 8,600 years old. These markings appear to be precursors to the Chinese writing system that fully emerged thousands of years later.
Sumerian cuneiform tablets emerged from earlier traditions of sealed clay envelopes called bullae around 3200 BC during the Uruk period in modern-day Iraq. Scribes impressed stylus marks into flattened pieces of clay to create records that lasted for millennia.
Martial wrote his first mention of the codex format in Apophoreta CLXXXIV at the end of the first century praising its compactness compared to scrolls. The vast majority of surviving Christian texts from before the 5th century AD are codices rather than scrolls.
The Diamond Sutra printed in 868 AD stands as the oldest known dated book in the world created via woodblock printing. This method originated in the Han dynasty before 220 AD and was widely used throughout East Asia.
Google Books estimated in 2010 that roughly 130 million total unique books have been published globally. The advent of electronic publishing means new information is often published online rather than in printed books through digital libraries.
In 1970 the International Standard Book Number provided unique identifiers for books since that year. One of the earliest and most widely known systems of cataloguing books is the Dewey Decimal System alongside the Library of Congress Classification system.