Smell my pages, bitch!

I've been writing about eBooks for a number of years and we're now at the stage where most people know what an eBook is and also many of us now have experience with one or other of the eReaders on the market. It is inevitable that eBooks will eventually dominate, they already do in some sectors, so it's time to get with the program.

Follow your nose - this way please!

When eBooks first started to move into the mainstream much was made of the fact that they were just a string of computer code and not really books at all. I love the smell of a real book, people shouted out - though I must say in all my years of browsing in bookshops I've often seen people reading the blurbs on the back of books but never making their selection by scent. However loving the smell of a book has been used in defense of traditional books so many times that the press now treat it as a cliche, a joke even.

It is only a matter of time before some enterprising company comes up with an aerosol spray that will make your eReader smell like a real book.


Smell of Books™ is available in five designer aromas. There’s a Smell of Books™ scent for every type of book lover.

• New Book Smell
• Classic Musty Smell
• Scent of Sensibility
• Eau You Have Cats
• Crunchy Bacon Scent

There's already a website, Smell of Books for this delightful addition to the eBook reading experience - I'm waiting for 'pinch of salt'  flavour.


Apparently people who love the smell of old books are actually smelling paper mulch, dust, glue and, if the previous owner was a smoker, tobacco residue. Then again we don't really know what the previous owner of any given book has been up to so it is better to avoid sniffing second hand copies of Lady Chatterley's Lover or the Angelina Jolie Yearbook.

.And so onward goes the inevitable domination of eBooks particularly for the mass fiction market.

According to the video below , "Chemists at University College, London have investigated the old book odor and concluded that old books release hundreds of volatile organic compounds into the air from the paper. The lead scientist described the smell as 'A combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness. When pressed on the scent held by ancient copies of  D H Lawrance's masterpiece they would not rule out bodily fluids.'"