Insects and ants will probably be the only creatures that can read this without help from any instrument, but Tokyo-based Toppan Printing has managed to print a book the size of the eye of a needle. Of course they’ll be applying to the Guinness World Records for the title of world’s smallest book.
The 22 page micro-book is called “Shiki no Kusabana” (flowers of seasons) and contains the names and microscopic monochrome illustrations of Japanese flowers like the cherry and the plum. The pages are 0.75 millimetre (0.03 inch) in size while the letters are just 0.01 mm wide. Naturally, unless you have super micro-vision, this cannot be read by the naked eye. The publisher says that they used the same technology that money printers use to avoid forgeries. They have actually been making micro-books since 1964 but it is the smallest one that they’ve printed so far. Currently, the Guinness record-holder for the smallest book is titled Chameleon and is a 30 page book created by Russian craftsman Anatoly Konenko in 1996.
The book is on display at Toppan’s Printing Museum in Tokyo. If you feel like adding it to your miniature stuff collection, you just need to cough up $307 and they’ll even throw in a free magnifying glass and a larger copy of the book. Now, let’s see if they can print a miniature version as well of L. Ron Hubbard’s Mission Earth, the world’s longest English-language book.
