Books were once expensive. In Samuel Johnson’s day, just one cost as much as a labourer’s entire weekly pay of nine shillings; while the modern equivalent, $600, buys about seventy-five non-fiction paperbacks averaging seven dollars each. Yet, not only because there were fewer pastimes did people sacrifice to buy books: There was a thirst. Throughout 1776, one in five colonial families bought Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, which cost them as much as a mid-range laptop today. Presumably, each copy was read by every adult in the family, as well as by friends and neighbors.