The smell of a new car. The wet pavement after a summer rain. Fresh bread baking in the oven. A field full of clovers. The first snowfall of Winter.
For me, it's the smell of a book, and the places where they come from. There's just something about the smell of a library or a bookstore. Whether it be the musty aroma of hundreds of novels that have passed through thousands of hands over the years, or the crisp scent of pristine tomes just hitting the shelves, it's the unique smell that you can only get from hundreds of books situated in one room.
It's like... magic.
I remember when I was younger, I used to make my dad come and sit with me in the library while I sorted through and eventually picked about 15 - 20 books to take home for those three glorious weeks. When I hit my teens, I used to make my parents drop me off at the giant bookstore about fifteen minutes away from my house while they did groceries.
And regardless of where I was, when I was amongst those books, time just disappeared.
When I hear that in the future bookstores and libraries will cease to exist, it just about breaks my heart. I know in this day and age, it's much easier to order your books online or have them directly downloaded to your e-reader, but nothing, absolutely nothing, beats walking into one of those sanctuaries and re-escaping to your childhood.
To this day, every time I hold a book in my hands, I can't resist taking a quick sniff of those pages...
What are your favorites scents? Which ones transport you back to your childhood? Do you have a strange obsession with the smell of books too?
