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| Image courtesy of the Wesleyan Writers Blog |
If you like the smell and feel of old books -- absent a whiff of nasty -- here's a short list of memorable library oldies, all great reads, on which we'd like to shine a little not-UV light. We'll follow with a video on why old books have a distinctive smell and with contemporary pointers on dabbing your e-reader behind the ears for an old-new-new-old olfactory experience.
Kon-Tiki : Across the Pacific by Raft by Thor Heyerdahl
Aku-Aku : The Story of Easter Island by Thor Heyerdahl
Nook Farm : Mark Twain's Hartford Circle by Kenneth R. Andrews
Connecticut Beautiful by Wallace Nutting
The Poetry of Robert Frost by Robert Frost; edited by Edward Connery Lathem
Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint Exupery
Letters from the Field, 1925-1975 by Margaret Mead
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Great Adventures and Explorations from the Earliest Times to the Present, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, ed.
Another Country by James Baldwin
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Why Do Old Books Smell?
From AbeBooks, an online seller of new, used, old and out-of-print titles.
Yes indeed there is a scent called In the Library which offers "a scent of old books; Russian & Moroccan leather bindings, worn cloth and a hint of wood polish." Listen to the story of the scent, courtesy of NPR.
You can also try Paper Passion, a smell that promises to replicate the smell of a "freshly printed book." Click here for info, via Roger Ebert.
The debate about the fate of the printed book continues, with perfumes...
