Okay, so today is not the real birthday of the paperback, but it is the birthday of Sir Allen Lane, who gave us the paperback as we know it today.

Legend has it that (not yet) Sir Allen got bored waiting at a train station in 1934, and came up with the idea of printing paperback editions of already successful hardback literature which could be sold from a vending machine.  Soon after, when he founded Penguin Books, these paperbacks appeared in the aptly named “Penguincubator.”

Of course, paperback editions quickly moved from the vending machine to racks and newstands, and are now an integral part of the publishing business.