This is Planet Money from NPR.
I do n't know about you, but every time I pick up a book in a bookstore at a yard sale,
the things I'm mostly paying attention to are the words.
You know, the title, the author's name, the actual reading material.
Way more than the physical package they come in.
But I had an experience recently that changed all that.
You see, last year, my boss's boss here on the show,
my grand boss, he asked if anyone wanted to report out the story behind the making of the Planet Money book
to see what it might reveal about the global economic machinery behind every book.
I accepted that mission, which is how earlier this year I found myself spelunking deep
inside the publishing industrial complex.
I got an invitation to see one of the biggest bookmaking factories in the world, part of the Lakeside Book Company.
And stepping into this place felt like stepping into Willy Wonka's factory, but for books.
And while I didn't find any bookish Oompa Loompas, I did meet a guy named Chris Mude.
Ironically, extremely chipper.
Chris basically grew up at the plant.
I started off in college to be a high school art teacher and then took a gap year.
And that gap year has now been almost 39 years with the company.
I come to Chris to help answer this sort of deceptively simple question.
Where do books come from?