German 'Buch' and English 'book' meant 'beech tablet' — runes were carved on beechwood.
German word meaning 'book,' a written or printed work consisting of bound pages; cognate of English 'book.'
From Old High German 'buoh,' from Proto-Germanic *bōkō, originally meaning 'beech tree' and then 'beech-wood writing tablet.' The connection is that early Germanic peoples carved runic inscriptions on thin boards of beechwood. The same root produced Old English 'bōc' (book, also beech) and is related to Proto-Germanic *bōkǭ (beech tree). Latin 'fāgus' (beech) and Greek
German preserves both descendants of the PIE beech-word: 'Buch' (book, from the writing-tablet sense) and 'Buche' (beech tree, from the original tree sense). The word 'Buchstabe' (letter of the alphabet) literally means 'beech-stave' — a piece of beech wood on which a rune was carved, revealing that the Germanic concept of literacy was literally rooted in trees.