There a billion and one pages floating about on the waves of the internet that are about the contents of books (reviews, the actual content, etc…). There are even pages dedicated to the visual allure of a nicely produced book. What there are very few of (at least to my knowledge) are pages extolling the many virtues of the smell of books.
I love the smell of books, well most of them anyway. New or old, both have their appeals. With old books it is usually about the smell of the paper and the ambient aromas that the book has absorbed over decades or more. New books smell more of ink and pure paper. Newer books that are printed on higher quality paper tend to smell better to me. I have a copy of Moby Dick that is of recent vintage, Moby-Dick: A Longman Critical Edition
I tend not to like the smell of oxidizing old paperbacks that are printed on low-quality (full of acid, not the good kind!) paper. I am actually borderline appaled at these types of books. Think old pulp fiction, 60-70s paperback sci-fi, etc… This is pretty damn silly of me, especially considering I have a good number of books that I really like that are in this format (lots of old Philip Jose Farmer stuff especially). I can not just plug my nose either, as I also have a texture aversion to these books. Their paper is similar to construction paper. I LOATHE touching, or even thinking about, construction paper **shudder**.
So, in short I am rather nerotic.
See a previous post that I made some three years ago that is quite similar.
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