November 10th, 2006

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Books
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The Smell of Books (In Which I Reveal My Immense Dorkiness)

Every since childhood, I’ve had a sensitive nose. If I actually drank the stuff, I suppose I might have had a future as a sommelier.

I’m not sure if this is scientific fact or not, but to me smell the best sense for evoking memory. I remember a Christmas a few years ago when somebody received a gift made of leather. My brother and I both recognized the smell instantly, but it took us most of the morning to work out what it was: leather ties which were wore to formal events when we were 8 and 10 years old.

Today the folks at Lonely Planet (via the folks at Raincoast Books) sent Geeky Traveller two newish books. The instant I opened them I was reminded of books from the dorkier days of my youth. This happens fairly regularly with books–the smell of the paper, ink or glue (or some combination there-in) strongly calls to mind (usually much-loved) books from my younger days.

Experimental Travel–a beautifully designed book–smells exactly (here I am riffling the pages directly under my nose) like certain Dungeons & Dragons modules (modules were short, playable adventures). In particular, for reasons I can’t explain, it smells like Expedition to Barrier Peaks.

The other book is Micronations, which is all about ‘home-made nations’ like Sealand. It’s printed on glossy paper, and thus smells precisely like Robotech Art 1, an episode guide for the popular Japanese animation series which I read cover-to-cover-to-cover-to-cover when I was twelve.

I know, the scale of my childhood dorkiness is daunting. I was just practicing, of course, for the adult dorkiness that followed.

Comments: 4 Responses so far

Monique
November 10th, 2006
3:26 pm

True dorkiness, but there was a fellow at the last social tech brewing who claimed he, by smell, could tell you the year a book was printed. This superpower was cultivated by years of working in a second-hand book shop. Is this heightened sense of smell also your superpower? Will you use it only for good, or will you slip into evil genius mode–speaking of which, the good folks at Raincoast should send you Evil Genius and Where Is My Jetpack? The latter is the follow up to How to Survive a Robot Uprising.
http://www.robotuprising.com/

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Travis
November 10th, 2006
3:52 pm

I was there — that fellow really did express a particular liking for the smell of ’50s hardbacks.

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Jordan
November 10th, 2006
5:35 pm

I’m into genealogy, so I’ve pored over my share of old books. The smell of old books definitely brings back memories. Of course, here in Malaysia the humidity is so high that new books will smell that way after only a few months. So I get all nostalgic reading a book I bought this year.

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Ross
November 12th, 2006
12:34 am

It is indeed scientific fact, as far as I know, that the sense of smell is strongly related to long-term and emotional memory (see this Wikipedia article for a brief rundown). I don’t know the name of the perfume, but every time I smell the fragrance that my favourite aunt used to wear when I was a child, the image of her face is instantly brought to mind, and I feel content and secure.

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