Book Sensory Experience

Table of Contents

• Smell of Books
• Physical Interaction with Books
• Aging and Wear of Books
• Books as Companions
• Book Covers and Design
• Books as a Portal to Other Worlds
• Books as Treasures
• Miscellaneous Observations about Books
• Other

Smell of Books

I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things.

I even love the smell of books.

…more than a half million books, all of them smelling like dust and ink, two terrible smells that blend mystically to make something beautiful. Powells is another church to me, a paperback sort of heaven.

And how could anyone consent to give up the smell of open books, old or new?

It's important to read a book, but also to hold the book, to smell the book... it's perfume, it's incense, it's the dust of Egypt...

She loved the smell of books, the feel of books, the look of them on the shelf.

Books smell and feel better. They have that wonderful thingness of turning the pages.

The combined smell of coffee and used books felt like the intersection of all things good and necessary.

For someone who is hungry for the wisdom of the past, the smell of books in a bibliopole is more beautiful than the smell of the world's finest dishes!

I still buy actual books. The smell, having it in your hands - there's really no substitute.

I read real books. On paper. You know, those printed books? I feel like this is the last thing I do to support my industry. I think they smell great, too.

There is something about the aroma of fresh books that’s totally intoxicating. A new book has a certain clean, crisp smell full of promise that is difficult to define. Sort of like the scent and feeling of just-washed bed linens at the moment you slide your legs between them.

The bookstore itself was cozy but not crowded, with posters of classic novels framed and hung on the walls. And it was filled with that wonderful book smell that anyone who’s ever even been near a book will recognize. It’s more than the smell of paper; it’s the smell of the high seas and adventure and far off worlds. It’s the smell of a billion billion worlds, each a portal to somewhere new.

Physical Interaction with Books

There was nothing better than the feel of a book in your hand, listening to the crinkling sounds as you turned its pages and the smell of its crisp paper.

I have seen this in thirty years of bookselling: customers stroking a book’s cover, peeking under the jacket, surreptitiously closing their eyes to smell the valley of pages - this sometimes accompanied by a quiet moan of pleasure- hugging it after purchase, and even giving it a little kiss.

He loved reading—loved taking a neglected book off the shelf and opening it, smelling its book smell, feeling the smooth pages under his fingers.

I guess you can call me "old fashioned". I prefer the book with the pages that you can actually turn. Sure, I may have to lick the tip of my fingers so that the pages don't stick together when I'm enraptured in a story that I can't wait to get to the next page. But nothing beats the sound that an actual, physical book makes when you first crack it open or the smell of new, fresh printed words on the creamy white paper of a page turner.

I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them--with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself.” ― Eudora Welty

He could judge with reasonable accuracy the amount of use a book had had. The first item to show any sign of wear was the dust jacket at the top and bottom of the spine. Little tears or cracks in the paper appeared here if a book had been taken off a shelf as much as three or four times.

So there you have it, a lifetime of first smelling the books, they all smell wonderful, reading the books, loving the books, and remembering the books.

Serious readers know the singular pleasure of handling a well-made book – the heft and texture of the case, the rasp of the spine as you lift the cover, the sweet, dusty aroma of yellowed pages as they pass between your fingers. A book is more than a vessel for ideas; It is a living thing in need of love, warmth, and protection.

He loved reading – loved taking a neglected book off the shelf and opening it, smelling its book smell, feeling the smooth pages under his fingers.

Aging and Wear of Books

The broken spine of the book shows the webbing of binder's string, and my fingers have worn white spots in the cover.

A series of books, dilapidated and faded, sit bundled together. Most of the bindings are separating from the yellowed pages, but each is at home in its battered state. Their wrinkled pages and discolored skin tell not of old age, but of a good life. These books, unlike so many others, were not just read, but revisited, loved, and experienced.

When I open them, most of the books have the smell of an earlier time leaking out between the pages - a special odor of the knowledge and emotions that for ages have been calmly resting between the covers. Breathing it in, I glance through a few pages before returning each book to its shelf.

A bran' new book is a beautiful thing, all promise and fresh pages, the neatly squared spine, the brisk sense of a journey beginning. But a well-worn book also has its pleasures, the soft caress and give of the paper's edges, the comfort, like an old shawl, of an oft-read story.

There were thousands of brown books in leather bindings, some chained to the book-shelves and others propped against each other as if they had had too much to drink and did not really trust themselves. These gave out a smell of must and solid brownness which was most secure.

Then I celebrated my Wall of Books. I counted the volumes on my twenty-foot-long modernist bookshelf to make sure none had been misplaced or used as kindling by my subtenant. “You’re my sacred ones,” I told the books. “No one but me still cares about you. But I’m going to keep you with me forever. And one day I’ll make you important again.” I thought about that terrible calumny of the new generation: that books smell.

Those are the old, dusty, handwritten books with yellow pages, and the smell of age on them. They are the books people think aren’t needed anymore.

There were books everywhere. Hundreds of books. Thousands of books. There were books of every size, shape, and color. They lined the walls from floor to ceiling, standing straight and rigid as soldiers on the polished mahogany shelves, the gilt lettering on their worn spines glinting in the soft light, the scent of supple leather and aging paper filling the air.

Books were like old friends, with their worn covers and well-thumbed pages...

The wooden shelves were tall and packed with worn covers of books read many times over. Pages were yellowed and paperbacks had arched spines like old sway-backed horses. It was an old folks’ home for secondhand books, with that smell of old newsprint and slightly musty wood smell.

Books as Companions

Aziraphale collected books. If he were totally honest with himself he would have to have admitted that his bookshop was simply somewhere to store them. He was not unusual in this. In order to maintain his cover as a typical second-hand book seller, he used every means short of actual physical violence to prevent customers from making a purchase. Unpleasant damp smells, glowering looks, erratic opening hours - he was incredibly good at it.

Then I celebrated my Wall of Books. I counted the volumes on my twenty-foot-long modernist bookshelf to make sure none had been misplaced or used as kindling by my subtenant. “You’re my sacred ones,” I told the books. “No one but me still cares about you. But I’m going to keep you with me forever. And one day I’ll make you important again.” I thought about that terrible calumny of the new generation: that books smell.

The pleasant books, that silently among Our household treasures take familiar places, And are to us as if a living tongue Spake from the printed leaves or pictured faces!

Books were like old friends, with their worn covers and well-thumbed pages...

The bookstore itself was cozy but not crowded, with posters of classic novels framed and hung on the walls. And it was filled with that wonderful book smell that anyone who’s ever even been near a book will recognize. It’s more than the smell of paper; it’s the smell of the high seas and adventure and far off worlds. It’s the smell of a billion billion worlds, each a portal to somewhere new.

Book Covers and Design

Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.

Some books are gaping tomes of blathering braggadocio, while others are cloistered pages beneath cashmere lined covers bathed in discretion. An exclusive list of readers who appreciate depth, will always be more respected than a diluted mass of lookie-loos that thrive upon mediocrity." - A.H. Scott 12/30/12

Old or new, the only sign I always try to rid my books of (usually with little success) is the price-sticker that malignant booksellers attach to the backs. These evil white scabs rip off with difficulty, leaving leprous wounds and traces of slime to which adhere the dust and fluff of ages, making me wish for a special gummy hell to which the inventor of these stickers would be condemned.

Book covers got very boring for a time. Then they improved with shiny ones, and now they come in fabric, and the kids are going crazy for them.

I steer clear of books with ugly covers. And ones that are touted as 'sweeping,' 'tender' or 'universal.'

I steer clear of books with ugly covers. And ones that are touted as 'sweeping,'_ 'tender' or 'universal.' But to the real question of what's inside: I avoid books that seem to conservatively follow stale formulas. I don't read for plot, a story 'about' this or that.

Books as a Portal to Other Worlds

Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times?" Mo had said..."As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells...and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower...both strange and familiar.

As the hours crept by, the afternoon sunlight bleached all the books on the shelves to pale, gilded versions of themselves and warmed the paper and ink inside the covers so that the smell of unread words hung in the air.

I knew books could see people around them, they ground their tiny teeth, tried to rattle like windows, stories to tell.

it’s like . . . finding a book inside another book. A small treasure of a book hidden inside a big common one—like . . . spells printed on dragonfly wings, discovered tucked inside a cookery book, right between the recipes for cabbages and corn. That’s what a kiss is like, he thought, no matter how brief: It’s a tiny, magical story, and a miraculous interruption of the mundane.

Sometimes the people who’ve owned the books in this shop leave little clues between the pages, and not just love notes or pressed flowers. You might come upon an unused Amtrak ticket tucked between the pages of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes or a sprinkling of crumbs along the gutter inside The Complete Engravings, Etchings, and Drypoints of Albrecht Dürer. Makes you wonder what kind of person noshes on a salami sandwich over The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Isn’t it odd how much fatter a book gets when you’ve read it several times?” Mo had said... “As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells... and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower... both strange and familiar.

There were books everywhere. Hundreds of books. Thousands of books. There were books of every size, shape, and color. They lined the walls from floor to ceiling, standing straight and rigid as soldiers on the polished mahogany shelves, the gilt lettering on their worn spines glinting in the soft light, the scent of supple leather and aging paper filling the air.

The bookstore itself was cozy but not crowded, with posters of classic novels framed and hung on the walls. And it was filled with that wonderful book smell that anyone who’s ever even been near a book will recognize. It’s more than the smell of paper; it’s the smell of the high seas and adventure and far off worlds. It’s the smell of a billion billion worlds, each a portal to somewhere new.

Books as Treasures

In a second-hand bookshop head to the back, find the old books with dust undisturbed and worn off covers for these clothe true treasures.

Books have that strange quality, that being of the frailest and tenderest matter, they outlast brass, iron and marble.

If books were Persian carpets, one would not look only at the outer side. because it is the stitch that makes a carpet wear, gives it its life and bloom.

Even a paperback printed on acidic paper, whose pages have yellowed ten years on, can still be read, no matter how badly the spine is cracked or how inflated it’s become from being dropped in the bathtub. The pages might separate from the spine, but a rubber band can keep them together. You may loan a book to your circle of closest friends, but shoes are another matter. A great book will never go out of style – books go with every outfit.

Books are like sapphires; they must be polished – polished! or else you insult your readers.

Miscellaneous Observations about Books

Sometimes the dustiest cover hides the best book. Sometimes the best cup is chipped.

It is neither poor handling nor the weather that turns the pages of a book a fine sepia. It is the reader's imagination.

It was immediately clear that the book had been undisturbed for a very long time, perhaps even since it had been laid to rest. The librarian fetched a checked duster, and wiped away the dust, a black, thick, tenacious Victorian dust, a dust composed of smoke and fog particles accumulated before the Clean Air acts.

I would pick up books that had been heavily documented on social media, only to find that the books themselves had a curatorial affect: beautiful descriptions of little substance, arranged in elegant vignettes – gestural text, the equivalent of a rumpled linen bedsheet or a bunch of dahlias placed just so.

I was looking for a book. A very particular book in a vast and wonderful library. I found what I was looking for. It hadn’t been opened for quite a long time judging by the dust that coated the upper edge and by the way the paper had yellowed on all sides creeping toward the gutter. When I opened it, some loose pages different from those in the book fell onto the floor. I picked them up and noticed that they were covered with a text in a language I did not understand.

I ran my finger over the text, then held the book up to my face, closed my eyes, and inhaled the sweet-sour scent of old paper and binding glue. Did everyone who loved books do this when they encountered a new one?

I know the names of the books – their old covers bleached to palest greens or pinks by the endless cycle of summers – lined up on the shelf.

I'd love to do a book with scratch n' sniff pages and pieces of string and plastic attached to the pages, you know?

Every scholar develops something analogous to a sense of smell, and if a book has declared itself intellectually bankrupt on page 2 the experienced scholar, left to himself will not read on to page 302.

Other

Prepare yourself for some bad news: Ronald Reagan’s library just burned down. Both books were destroyed. But the real horror: He hadn’t finished coloring either one of them.

The little book lay on the floor, nondescript and soggy

(P)assages of those books I once wrote in my head came back, like the curled edges of a dream which refuse to flatten out. They would always be flapping there, those curled edges... flapping from the cornices of those dingy shit-brown shanties, those slat-faced saloons, those foul rescue and shelter places where the bleary-eyed, codfish-faced bums hung about like lazy flies, and O God, how miserable they looked, how wasted, how blenched, how withered and hollowed out!

His books were spilled onto the floor, their pages creased beneath them like the broken wings of birds

Madam Pince, our librarian, tells me that it is 'pawed about, dribbled on, and generally maltreated' nearly everyday - a high compliment for any book.

The tome weighed more than all of their schoolbooks combined and smelled musty, like a shop filled with things much older than themselves. Each page looked one breath away from breaking, and the boys took great pains not to damage the book.

I've yet to find the exact word to describe the enjoyment that an evening spent riffling through old pattern books can bring.

Once or twice I saw evidence that rats had been nesting among the books, rearranging them to make snug two and three-level homes for themselves and smearing dung on the covers to form the rude characters of their speech.

The library knows that it is a temporary fix. We have a stamp for the inside front cover: BROKEN SPINE NOTED. It is like a bracelet worn by a diabetic. When you return the book with this message stamped inside, we know you're not the one responsible for this horrible thing. It was some other bastard before you. The book has a preexisting condition.

It had a crisp paper jacket, unlike the paper-covered library books I was used to, and the way the pages parted, I could tell I was the first to open it ... I valued that half-dream state of being lost in a book so much that I limited the number of pages I let myself read each day in order to put off the inevitable end, my banishment from that world. I still do this.

When this book is mould,And a book of manyWaiting to be soldFor a casual penny,In a little open case,In a street unclean and cluttered,Where a heavy mud is spatteredFrom the passing drays,Stranger, pause and look;From the dust of agesLift this little book,Turn the tattered pages,Read me, do not let me die!Search the fading letters, findingSteadfast in the broken bindingAll that once was I!

Tough to part; lock, stock and barrel. Something remains, like recognizable tastes and smells, which kindle the faculty of memory, yea-pricks the soul.

What are these things that this houses, Eva?" Rovender picked up a crumbling tome. He handed it to her."These are books," Eva said as the yellowed bits of paper flaked away in her hands to rest on the floor. "It's what humans used to put all of their writing in long ago.

CUSTOMER: I read a book in the sixties. I don’t remember the author, or the title. But it was green, and it made me laugh. Do you know which one I mean?”― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

I still buy actual books. The smell, having it in your hands - there's really no substitute.Nathan Fillion

When a bookmark tumbles out of an old book pristine and unwrinkled, it is like a gasp of breath from another century.

The cleanest book on a dusty bookshelf is usually a dirty one.

I take a slow sip of lukewarm coffee, reopen the book, and read the words scribbled in red ink near the top: Everyone needs an olly-olly-oxen-free.

I love old books. They tell you stories about their use. You can see where the fingerprints touched the pages as they held the book open. You can see how long they lingered on each page by the finger stains.

The first class of readers may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems.

Books are like sapphires; they must be polished - polished! or else you insult your readers.

It was just an idea I had, that it could be cool to have a book covered in fake fur.

Books do actually consume air and exhale perfumes.

For writers: If you polish a book too much, it'll be flat and shiny and smooth--and not too interesting. It's the little pits and bumps and whatnot that show voice and make a book unique from all the other super shiny flat surfaces

I still have a fondness for books. Many a time I will be antiquing, and I'll say, 'What's that old-timey curio over there? What is that, a candlestick telephone, one of those old pull-chain toilets? Oh no, it's a book. I used to help make those things! I will buy it and use it to decorate my chain of casual family-dining restaurants.

A large, still book is a piece of quietness, succulent and nourishing in a noisy world, which I approach and imbibe with "a sort of greedy enjoyment," as Marcel Proust said of those rooms of his old home whose air was "saturated with the bouquet of silence."

My books were always full of ink blots, always stained and covered with smeared sketches and pictures, which one draws idly when his attention wanders from his task.

Stranger, pause and look; From the dust of ages Lift this little book, Turn the tattered pages, Read me, do not let me die! Search the fading letters finding Steadfast in the broken binding All that once was I!

Books were a lot less messy than orgasms.

The peace of great books be for you, Stains of pressed clover leaves on pages, Bleach of the light of years held in leather.

There was a certain hum that would be generated by the book when I was writing well; I'd stop working the instant that hum snapped off.

The book was so clean and white, and the letters were so perfectly black and defenseless; it would have been like tearing the ears off a kitten.

A large, still book is a piece of quietness, succulent and nourishing in a noisy world, which I approach and imbibe with “a sort of greedy enjoyment,” as Marcel Proust said of those rooms of his old home whose air was “saturated with the bouquet of silence.”

Because each book has its own special perfume.

I’ve never understood people who return books after they’ve obviously read them. “Oh no, that dog-eared page was there when I bought it.” Like hell it was. How about I punch you in the bloody face and tell you that bruise was there before and then we’ll call it even.

I am momentarily struck silent. Clean that junk out? What kind of a Neanderthal talks about books that way?

For writers: If you polish a book too much, it’ll be flat and shiny and smooth – and not too interesting. It’s the little pits and bumps and whatnot that show voice and make a book unique from all the other super shiny flat surfaces.

Real dyed-in-the-wool booksellers – like Sophie and me – can’t lie. Our faces are always a dead giveaway. A lifted brow or curled lip reveals that it’s a poor excuse for a book, and the clever customers ask for a recommendation instead, whereupon we frog-march them over to a particular volume and command them to read it. If they read it and despise it, they’ll never come back. But if they like it, they’re customers for life.

I still buy actual books. The smell, having it in your hands – there’s really no substitute.

When I pick up a book that's, you know, wreathed in laurels, I expect a lot, and that doesn't give the book its best chance to shine.

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