There's a scientific reason why you love the smell of old books

Maël Racapé/Wikimedia Commons/Attribution License

• Research suggests that there is a scientific reason why old pages in a book smell so good to some people.
• As books decompose over time, they emit a smell that comes from volatile organic compounds.
• When you don't know the name of a scent, you tend to associate with something more familiar to you.

Do you like to have your nose in a book? No, we’re not talking figuratively. Something about the scent of old books can perk up any bookworm. And turns out, there’s a legitimate reason that dusty old pages actually smell good.

Most of what we smell comes from volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which books give off as they decompose over time. University College London researchers extracted its VOCs from a 1928 French novel they found at a used bookstore. (Find out where to donate your own old books.) Volunteers blindly sniffed extracts from the book, plus seven other unlabeled scents ranging from chocolate and coffee to fish market and dirty linen. Afterward, participants filled out a survey with a question asking them to describe the smell of the historic book.See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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