Inks, solvents, adhesives, bleaching agents, and other chemicals involved in modern manufacturing processes combine to produce the crisp, synthetic smell you notice when you snap open a freshly printed text, which, I suppose, can have its own appeal.) Environmental factors, such as the kind of climate or room a book was stored in-whether it was dusty or dirty or exposed to constant sunlight or mildew-all contribute to a book’s smell profile. (New books release their own, very different VOCs. As these components break down, VOCs are released into the air, and we detect them in the form of that distinctive odor. The paper, inks, and adhesives that make up a book contain hundreds of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In essence, when we breathe it in, we are simultaneously smelling the life-and the death-of a book. The complex scent is actually an amalgamation of specific chemical markers of decay that combine with how a book was made and how and where it was stored and used by the people who have touched it. That may be because no two books smell exactly the same. Old books have a potent, unmistakable smell, but it can be a hard odor to describe. Realtors rely on the aromas of simmering spices or baking bread to inspire warm, welcoming feelings in potential home buyers. Balsam, clove, and cranberry are popular artificial environmental fragrances used during the holiday shopping season. Smell is often used as a marketing tool to boost brand identity and to motivate consumers: retail stores, casinos, and hotels regularly employ high-powered misting machines and other diffusing systems to add ambient scents of coconut, citrus, or green tea to their spaces. Olfactory sensations can ignite intense responses and can influence mood, productivity, cognitive function, and physical actions. A whiff might conjure delectable hours whiled away browsing dusty, crowded aisles of secondhand bookstores or the comforting, familiar shelves in a loved one’s home. No? Then maybe it started on weekend visits to your neighborhood library.
Perhaps your attraction to the scent of old books began, like mine, as a parlor trick for your father’s amusement, guessing by smell the publication dates of vintage Mad magazines and Crypt of Horror comics. (I received the tangerine, juniper, and clove of a Charles Dickens candle as a gift from my mother.)įanciful connotations aside, our sense of smell can trigger powerful emotions, memories, and reactions. There are even scents inspired by specific authors. An internet search returns candles, incense, home fragrances, body lotions, and perfumes all claiming to re-create the intimate atmosphere of a cozy reading nook or the leather and mahogany elegance of a splendidly appointed study. Some people, like me, really love it, and I’m far from alone. Some people love it some decidedly do not. Yet in it there is a gleam of recognition: old-book smell. I turn and meet a librarian’s accusatory gaze. ?Īnd then it’s gone, my reverie shattered by the almost theatrically loud clearing of a throat.
How many have held this book before me? Where has it been hidden? Whom has it saved? How has it. Pages turned by blood- or berry-stained fingers. The centuries of candlelight and English damp. The history it conjures! Castle and clock tower. A few more inches and I’m there, inside it. No one in the whole British Library is paying attention to me. I check the room again, then move in closer. I lean in, my head inching imperceptibly toward my reading table and the 400-year-old encyclopedia of medicinal plants resting in its foam cradle. All my fellow readers are hunched over, absorbed in their own treasures. Few sounds disturb the heavy quiet in here: an occasional cough the scrape of a chair on the worn, creaky floorboards the chirping wheels of the book delivery cart the deliberately slow turning of a stiff, crinkled, centuries-old page. My eyes dart around the wood-paneled room and over to the circulation desk.
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