It?s the perfect addition to every Bermudian home library, every living room coffee table.

?Pages in Time: 100 Years?, a newly released book from The Royal Gazette chronicles a century of newspaper coverage from 1905 to 2005.

It?s a sweeping look at history one front page at a time ? the US Naval Base lease agreement in 1941, the visit of Prince Charles in 1970, Hurricane Emily in 1987. It appears no major local news event was missed.

?As I did the research I realised there was nothing quite like this done before,? said the book?s researcher and writer Jennifer Hind.

She spent 200 hours pouring over reams of microfiche. And the end result is a 252-page book which she hopes will meet the standards of historians and couch-sitting page turners alike.

The book is separated into titled decades. The 30s called ?Railways and Airlines?, the 60s called ?Protest and Progress?, the 80s referred to as ?From Tourism to International Business?. There are ten decades covered in all.

William Zuill began reporting at The Royal Gazette in 1986. Now he?s the paper?s Editor.

?From a newspaperman?s point of view it?s fascinating to watch the evolution of the Gazette,? he said while leafing through the hardcover book in his office.

?If you go back to 1905, there are advertisements all over the front page and not an awful lot of local news on page one or pictures.?

Today the front page rarely features an ad, just about every story is local, and as many as a half-dozen photographs are out front in an effort to grab the reader.

?It also shows,? said Mr. Zuill, ?how a newspaper is, to a great extent, at the centre of events.

The famous phrase that newspapers are the first draft of history really comes through in this.? The book may also remind people of significant news stories long forgotten.

In 1932, Babe Ruth cruised to Bermuda for vacation onboard the Monarch of Bermuda; in 1979, Bermudian Gina Swainson was crowned Miss World in London; and in 1991, President George H.W. Bush met with Prime Minister John Major in the run up to the first Gulf War. It?s all inside ?Pages in Time?.

There were, of course, periods in time when the news was grim. Mrs. Hind was mindful of that.

?An attempt was made to balance it with some of the more positive things,? she points out, ?fun things like laws against short shorts?.

That piece of fine reporting found on page 61.

The book doesn?t try to give readers the full story. Instead it?s more of a historical snapshot ? either with a replica of the front page or a summary written near the margin.

It will be hard for readers not to notice that the Gazette?s price, style, and reporting focus consistently changed with the passing decades.

And perhaps the only way to now capture that evolution in one place is with this new book

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It?s on sale now for $49.95 at local bookstores.