Now, a 'book vending machine' that can print 540-page book in 9 mins!

London, April 28 (ANI): It may take several months for an average reader to complete 'Crime and Punishment', but a copy of the book can be printed in just nine minutes, thanks to Britain's first 'book vending machine'.

The Daily Telegraph ordered a freshly bound edition of Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic, which was one of the first tomes to drop out of the Espresso Book Machine when it opened for business for the first time yesterday.

The book is one of more than 400,000 titles that can be printed on demand at Blackwell bookshop on Charing Cross Road in central London.

To see the machine's process, the Telegraph ordered a warm copy of the 540-page book to compare to the published versions available on shelves.

With pages spewed out at the rate of 100 a minute, the printing itself was over in a little over five minutes.

The sheets were then shuttled into the binding section of the machine were they were pressed, covered, glued, and cut to shape in under four minutes.

The results were impressive, as the work looked and felt like a standard edition.

The paper and ink are the same quality used in larger presses, and the binding appeared flawless.

Phill Jamieson, head of marketing at Blackwell, said that the firm was uncertain how the 68,000-pound machine - one of only three such printers in the world - would be used during its three-month trial period. (ANI)