There is no scent so pleasant to my nostrils as that faint, subtle reek which comes from an ancient book.
Sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads.
Learning to decipher words had only added to the pleasures of holding spines and turning pages, measuring the journey to the end with a thumb-riffle, poring over frontispieces. Books! Opening with a crackle of old glue, releasing perfume; closing with a solid thump.
My fingers positively itched to drift at length along their spines, to arrive at one whose lure I could not pass, to pluck it down, to inch it open, then to close my eyes and inhale the soul-sparking scent of old and literate dust.
The smell of a freshly printed book is the best smell in the world.
A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.
Books woke me up. Books are my favorite man-made objects. I fetishize their design, smell, feel. And that they can contain such burning, complex communications is a miracle to me.
I even love the smell of books.
For one thing, I know every book of mine by its scent.
Because each book has its own special perfume.
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.
