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The Sweet Smell of ... Books?


CuriousGeorgette

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I was reading about taste receptors in testicles - YES! (link) - don't ask! Google throws up some random results sometimes which I can't resist.

 

ANyyyyywhooo

 

Saw this 'related' hmm - again don't ask - article on how the smell of chocolate in a book shop makes people browse longer and buy more. 

 

I can get behind that! Chocolate and books!

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2371566/Sweet-smell-success-How-smell-chocolate-help-reverse-decline-number-people-buying-books-shop.html

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Mmm chocolate... Although I do have to say that the smell of new books is just as likely to make me stay in a book shop for a while :).

 

Another interesting smell fact is that the smell of onions frying makes in a house you are trying to sell makes people like your house more.

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I love the smell of new books :wub:! I've not been in a bookshop where it smelled like chocolate, that I recall (I have a strong sense of smell so I think I'd notice). The smell of coffee wouldn't do it for me, we had to research caffeine in coffee in a lab practical at university and ever since I don't like the smell of coffee. I've never liked coffee, but that was such an overdose for me (since we had to make lots of coffee for all the different tests) that for a long time I didn't like the smell. Nowadays I still don't like it, but I don't mind it too much if it's a little bit of smell.

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That's one of the things I like about Barnes & Noble......you walk in and the coffee and pastry smells are lovely.  Even if the coffee isn't so great. heh

 

But I'm picky about coffee, and like my own best.  Coffee and chicory.

 

I know everyone talks about the smell of books........but, frankly, I don't get it.  Maybe I just don't have a strong sense of smell.

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That's one of the things I like about Barnes & Noble......you walk in and the coffee and pastry smells are lovely.  Even if the coffee isn't so great. heh

 

But I'm picky about coffee, and like my own best.  Coffee and chicory.

 

I know everyone talks about the smell of books........but, frankly, I don't get it.  Maybe I just don't have a strong sense of smell.

 

New books definitely have a smell of their own which is quite distinctly different from the musty smell of old books. I like both. And there are few greater pleasures in life than wandering around a good book store new or used. 

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  • 1 year later...

I love the smell of a new book.  Picked up the new book Tennison by Lynda La Plante from the library today and spent a few moments inhaling the fresh new book smell and the pages so crispy new and untouched! !!!!!!!!!!!   Then down to local Costa for a coffee and another lovely smell of fresh coffee for a quick read.

 

Smelly madness but sheer bliss for me. :readingtwo:

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  • 4 weeks later...

I love the smell of new books, a sort of papery smell.  I'm surprised at fried onions though, I'd have thought the smell of frying would put people off a house, I can't bear that smell myself (like the smell you get when you walk past a hot dog stall, ugh).  I love the smell of fresh coffee even though I find it undrinkable, and of course chocolate, bread/pastry, fresh cut grass, and that lovely smell you used to get walking into a record shop, which of course you don't get now with CDs! 

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  • 8 months later...

Conversely I love the "musty" smell of old books - I'm a bit of a book sniffer and the musty smell is part of the attraction of second hand bookshops for me. 1 with a cafe selling decent coffee is even better. :smile:

 

 

That's one of the things that puts me off secondhand books.  Not only do I not like the smell, but the dust that builds up on very old books to make that musty smell affects my asthma, so reading a very old book makes me ill.  Give me a new book every time! :lol:

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I once ordered a used book from the internet, supposedly in very good condition - when it arrived it was in a state that I can only describe as grubby, covered in what I assumed (and hoped) were tea/coffee stains, basically it looked like it had been dropped in a very large muddy puddle, and I wouldn't give a book in that condition to anyone.  So I'd only buy a used book if it was in very good condition, I don't mind a few mild spinal creases and slightly foxed pages, and generally the used books I have ordered have been in v good condition - some look as if they'd hardly been read (a bit like my own books).  But I'm careful now who I order from, I think I've learnt which sites to trust!

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What do you do with a new book if you get it home and spill your tea on it? ;)

 

I don't. :lol:

 

Same, Madeleine, I recently bought a book (online, allegedly in very good conition) that was grubby and stained and I didn't even want to touch it. I don't mind old, with sun damage, broke spine, tears etc. But CLEAN. I don't know where that book has been before me.

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Once they're clean, I'm quite happy with them!

 

Just as an example, what I would consider a 'grubby' cover on this copy of Calvin and Hobbes I grabbed in a second hand shop last week. The marks are actual gritty dirt marks. Bit hard to see in this picture, they're a lot clearer in real life. They should wash off, though, and the inside is fine, so I took it. But that kind of dirt inside a book isn't washable, and its offputting (to me!)

 

post-4797-0-00638100-1468859036_thumb.jpg

 

 

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