The Smell of Books

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I get funny looks in the bookstore because I'm forever smelling the insides of books. The reason for this is, as a youngster, I was enamoured by the green-spined 'Fighting Fantasy' choose-your-own-adventure books by Steve Livingstone and Ian Jackson, or maybe it's Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, which I think it is. Anyway, I remember the smell of those books, and whenever I got a new one, it would smell the same, the pages and the ink and the glue all coming together to create an indefinable, unique scent which has been etched in my memory. After that I moved on to playing AD&D (Dungeons & Dragons for those non-poindextrose amongst us) and reading, literally *reading* the sourcebooks from cover to cover, and I fell in love with the smell of those too.

So lately I've been smelling books, hoping to capture those two scents once again. I've yet to have any luck but I'm still trying. Now my favourite book smells are generally produced by Cassell military paperbacks (especially the glossy 'History Of Warfare' series) and whatever I can find by Black Sparrow Press, which isn't much. I also indulge in a little fantasy-novel-sniffing from time to time, as those generally have a better odour than stuff like Penguin Classics.

So, uh, anybody else do this? What are your favourite book smells?

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 00:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I LOVE the smell of used books that haven't actually been read -- ie they've been sitting on the shelf a while, maturing before the seal is popped.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 00:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Ann: But don't you find that those books tend to absorb the odours of the volumes surrounding them? I admit that a matured book generally smells better and less chemically than a fresh-printed job, but I also find that they suck up the smells around them to a certain extent, and that if you want the good scent, you really have to crack them open and dig deep into the cooler middle pages.

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 00:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Writingstatic: So what you're saying is, unread used books get used-book freezer burn?
But yeah, books smell great. Hadn't thought about it much, but I think that's one of the subliminal blandishments of being in any kind of bookstore, along with the lighting.

― Phil Christman, Tuesday, 27 January 2004 04:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Phil: Exactly. I also like this word "blandishments".

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 04:57 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't that a great one (I mean "blandishments")? I think I might've picked it up from Martin Amis, or else from Guy Davenport. I'm an unashamed word-stealer.

― Phil Christman, Tuesday, 27 January 2004 05:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Hmmmm - the smell of a hardcover photo/coffee-table book - the scent and sound of the virgin pages, brimming with ink.

I, at one time, worked in a used bookstore - kind of burned me out on the scent of old, musty, dry tomes, and the mildewed ones, too - but I still like the scent of old leather, for some reason. And having so many books in my home - I've been told that my house smells both like a library and a bookstore, but I've no idea if that is a good or bad thing.

Phil, I'm going to steal "blandishments" from you, if that's okay. (And I'll do my darndest to attribute the term in the midst of conversation, if that doesn't interrupt the flow of conversation.)

(Actually, I really like the smell of a geeky board game, fresh from the plastic-wrap, as you lift the lid for the first time.)

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 05:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Sounds like an Amis thing to me.

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 06:09 (twenty-one years ago)

The sequel to "Deathtrap Dungeon" had a fantastic smell.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 15:04 (twenty-one years ago)

The benefits of walking into an entire 3-story building that sells nothing but used books, is the lovely scents when you enter the door. New bookstores smell fine too, but nothing as lovely as used books.

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 15:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Like the fetor of époisses, the fecal smell of the glue in the bindings of old used books quickens my blood. It’s the promise of beauty or awe, of metamorphosis, and it reminds me of all those books I bought, read, and loved before I thought I knew anything about anything.

― Michael White (Hereward), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 17:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Chuck Tatum: On a sort of quasi-relevant tangent, the manual for the old Microprose PC game 'UFO: Enemy Unknown' is one of the best things I've ever sniffed. I wish I still had that thing.

Michael: Nicely put, you old softie.

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Tuesday, 27 January 2004 22:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Indeed.

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 05:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I love older books with yellowed pages and fairly large, though not huge, type... the yellow of the paper goes with the faint vanilla smell, especially if the paper is thick... and you can see the type pressed into the page a bit, almost like an extra braille coating you can run yer fingers over...

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 05:51 (twenty-one years ago)

My Bartlett's Roget's Thesaurus is a beautifully smelling book. You only have to inhale from it and about six synonyms come rushing, if that's the word, up your nostrils.

― R the bunged up with jollop of V (Jake Proudlock), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 09:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Space Quest 3 also smelt pretty fine. Police Quest 2 was kinda funky.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Ms. Sterzinger, that's the closest thing to biblio-porn I've yet read :) Damn, that's fine!

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Chuck: That game was just funky all over.

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 22:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Thank you, bibliophile! I dug up this thread in order to spooge all over myself again, actually. I just bought a really promising-looking Italian grammar on my work break and I cracked it at my desk and the smell of it brought me back to some of the happiest moments of my life: my first semester of high school, whenI finally got to take a foreign-language class. There's something about an alien grammar hitting your brain mixed with the scent of cheap paper and educational glue that just makes life seem simple and beautiful and logical, I feel all floaty with the weird logic of language, god I'm so happy right now I can't even think straight!

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 03:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Sterzinger - I'm even envious of your email address! Your book-porn description is a hit with my reading friends and acquaintances... It also reminds me of Helene Hanff's love of old, secondhand copies. I've got to get my thrills this weekend, it's been too long between visits to my favorite secondhand bookshop!

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 22:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow! I just finally got a contributor's copy of the first actual BOOK ! BOOK ! BOOK ! one of my short stories has ever been and the first thing I did was stick my nose in it and it smelled just like grapes. I may never be in a great book, but at least I'm in a gra--

(shot by shadow-governmental Pun Control Squad)

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Friday, 6 February 2004 01:38 (twenty-one years ago)

that should read "one of my short stories has ever been in", duh, and I wonder why I have such trouble getting published...

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Friday, 6 February 2004 01:43 (twenty-one years ago)

...the PCS gets them every time...

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Saturday, 7 February 2004 14:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I love smelling books too. Having grown up I noticed a while ago that I got the habit from my mom. I even like the stale crackerjacks smell of a library book read by alot of smokers but i like all the different new book smells best, and there are many many smells.

― linn d., Thursday, 19 February 2004 04:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Hey yeah! I am Linn D.'s mom. The really OLD books smell awesome! I have always been a booksmeller. Late one night when Linn was about 10 years old I went into his bedroom and found him SMELLING BOOKS! It was quite gratifying.

― joyce d., Monday, 23 February 2004 20:59 (twenty-one years ago)

Hi. I DID enjoy messing around this site, and stopped immediately at the smell of books, and saw your comment there! And added my own. HA!Love you much. Did you hang your clock yet? Grace wonders how you like her cross stitch picture? (I'm glad I have left you such a great legacy to remember me by!)

― Mom, Monday, 23 February 2004 21:11 (twenty-one years ago)

The topic is good.

For me it has an American flavour.

Amerian libraries c.1979 are one of the great lost fragrances of my life.

― the spellfox, Tuesday, 24 February 2004 15:53 (twenty-one years ago)

It's the taste of books that gets me, that dry frisson as you chomp into a yellowed page.

― Left Blank, Tuesday, 24 February 2004 18:44 (twenty-one years ago)

"Library: An Unquiet History" by Matthew Battles, he talks about his love of the scent of books, which his mother was also keen on...

― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Monday, 1 March 2004 14:48 (twenty-one years ago)

"The topic is good.
For me it has an American flavour.

Amerian libraries c.1979 are one of the great lost fragrances of my life.

-- the spellfox (pinefo...), February 24th, 2004."

Wow, you just evoked a very very pleasant set of early memories with that one, thank you!

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 01:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Not specifically related, and pretty juvenile... but has anybody else found that when borrowing certain books from the library there are a veritable cornucopia of boogers trapped between the pages? I was teaching a class in adolescent fiction, and I got a few Bobbsey twins novels (last checked out in 1968!) and found three big green greasy ones resting on the frontispiece and thought to myself ... that snot is at least 35 years old...

― The Second Drummer Drowned (Atila the Honeybun), Tuesday, 2 March 2004 04:20 (twenty-one years ago)

"I thought I was alone. Thank God I'm not alone!" Bill Hicks

― Joaquin Mancias, Wednesday, 3 March 2004 16:51 (twenty-one years ago)

When they redid the library of my childhood, I, having moved several hundred miles away, anxiously asked the friend who shared the news with me "What did they do with the smell? Does it still have that perfect dust-ink-dry-high ceilinged smell?" She didn't know what I meant and my heart died a little. I've since visted the remodeled space and the smell is still there. I cracked open some mysteries that hadn't been checked out since 1979 to be sure. I work in a library which doesn't have "that smell", so I know it's not universal.

― Rabin the Cat, Friday, 5 March 2004 03:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Ha ha, this snot is only 29!

I wonder if snot adds to the library smell?

Did kids snot more in 1979? Is that the secret? Or was there a certain type of binding glue that had fallen into disuse and the remainders were just aging right... or maybe it has something to do with the timing of the downfall of some type of binding? Leather? Cloth?

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Friday, 5 March 2004 03:51 (twenty-one years ago)

i dont like the smell of books, they smell like paper!

― gaol clichy (clichy), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 09:10 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm starting to understand why there's seemingly always at least a certain amount of snot in library books, and it's because of all of you people sticking your schnozes in-between the covers!

I've found myself smelling books from time to time, but never really enjoying it much; it usually happens when I'm hugging a book for whatever reason.
They should make some sort of amalgam between books and fuzzy kittens. Though that would probably not help to stop my cat Fjodor from lying down on top of what I'm reading in bed.

― Øystein H-O (Øystein H-O), Wednesday, 10 March 2004 09:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Regarding non-book particles found within the pages of books, it might pay to remember the following advice by Charles Lamb:

"If you find the Miltons in certain parts dirtied and soiled with a crumb of ripe Gloucester cheese, blacked in the candle (my usual supper), or peradventure a stray ash of tobacco wafted into its crevices, look to the passage more especially: depend upon it, it contains good matter."

― writingstatic (writingstatic), Thursday, 11 March 2004 03:59 (twenty-one years ago)

nine months pass...

Swadlincote library stinks something rotten.

Ultimate library scent: North West Leicestershire Mobile Library Van - use it or lose it!

― Puddin'Head Miller (PJ Miller), Saturday, 1 January 2005 11:26 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

sp@m

― sp@m, Tuesday, 6 June 2006 00:41 (nineteen years ago)

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