Sunday afternoon I visited a Barnes & Noble. As soon as I entered the store, I smelled the air—books! Why is it that books smell so good? I prefer the smell of a bookstore to candles, handmade soap, even coffee.
Once I’ve made a purchase and settle down to read, I open the book, bury my nose in the pages, and breathe in. Smelling a book is a sensuous experience. I can identify what I think of as ink, pulp, glue, but really the fix is in enjoying all the smells as a single entity. New books, old books--these are the smells of adventure and heartbreak, dragons and aliens.
From ymfy ~
Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us.
Cool things about books ~
> Bookshelf porn has cool photos, from which I took the one I used for this post. Love the photos on this site!
> Some science type stuff behind what's in the smell of old books and why they smell so good.
> This is kinda dumb, but I can't resist, for ebooks mavens, book smell in a spray. If only...
