The Smell of Books: A Short Confession | Bookish Musings

Ah, the smell of books. Please don't look at me with judgmental eyes and pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.

The smell of old book B.O. while you're walking down library aisles. That magical whiff when you crack open the spine of a newly published hardcover. It's such a special sense that Robin Sloan named a chapter in Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, "The Smell of Books".

I acquired this special sense of reading when I had the sudden realization that the book I was holding was more than an inanimate object with words and pages. Rather, the book was alive! And all things that live and breathe also smell.

So next time you pick up a book, lean in for a good whiff. You'd be surprised that each book has its unique smell. Hey, you may even be able to associate a particular smell (sweet, musky, sour, bitter) to a particular genre or trope. For example, all the vampire books I own have a sour, dusty smell. My set of The Darkest Minds and Divergent series, which are both YA dystopias, smell jarringly sweet!
 
I'm not generalizing and saying all vampire books smell sour and all YA books smell sweet. This is a confession of my own reading fetish (a fetish I know many readers share). My other point is to encourage readers to expand their reading senses beyond seeing, feeling, and hearing. Lean in and take a whiff.