4 ms·
The question of "what is old book smell?" is well answered. I was hoping to get some musings about why. That is, what is it about us that makes us associate th
by __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
The question of "what is old book smell?" is well answered. I was hoping to get some musings about why. That is, what is it about us that makes us associate those chemicals as positive?
I think there can be coincidence. Some things just have a smell because like chemistry and such. The brain must represent that particular chemical signal somehow. But when it's a noteworthy smell, when it's the kind of thing people write articles about, I expect a little more.
Truffles smell good to animals because if they didn't, animals wouldn't dig them up and help distribute the spores. Decaying meat smells bad to animals because if it didn't, we might eat it and get sick (that battle having been already lost to the decomposers).
So with that in mind, why do old books smell so good?
- phero_cnstrcts 3y agoBecause they want to be read.
- nickpeterson 3y agoI don’t know, I think it’s not so much the smell but how distinctive it is, that mixed with knowing what it is (compared to something macabre) reinforces nostalgia. I think it also helps that many books are timeless
- inimino 3y agoPublishers wouldn't choose papers and ink that smelled bad. There's a lot of ways to make paper and ink, so it's not that surprising that we'd eventually nail the aesthetics.