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It's #WorldBookDay today (but only in the UK & Ireland, bizarrely), so here's a reminder of the chemistry behind new and old book smells! https://www.compoundchem.com/2014/06/01/newoldbooksmell/
@compoundchem a few years ago I went down a special interest rabbit hole trying to find out which chemicals in essential oils are psychoactive based on which ones various plants have in common, and which plants are said to have similar effects. And I discovered by accident that you can just go *buy* many of the chemicals that made lemony herbs smell that way.
So if anyone would like an extremely authentic fragrance for making book scented wax melts or something, here's your shopping list. (Please verify whether any of these are unsafe to breathe or get on your skin, first.)
@legumancer @compoundchem I recall reading about someone who made a sort of sticker that you could put on e-readers or whatever device one uses to read digital texts and upon rubbing it would emit the characteristic odour of (old) books.
@compoundchem I gotta figure out how to get these smells turned into fragrances…
okay so we have aged books made of classic materials, and we have fresh books of modern materials. What about fresh books of classic materials and aged books of modern materials?
This graphic takes advantage of the ambiguity of the words “new” and “old” and leaves out half the possibilities.
@topherclay It’s certainly a spectrum rather than a dichotomy. There is only so much that can be highlighted in the format of these graphics but there are references provided at the link to explore in more detail if the topic has piqued your interest!
@compoundchem please do a graphic like this for Steam Deck vent and new Yu-gi-oh! cards!
@compoundchem I have some old paperbacks in my collection and the smell they give off is almost like traveling through time.
@compoundchem This is going to launch some tattoos, I guarantee it. Maybe even one for me.
@compoundchem the book on the bottom of the old book stack looks like it has mold on the edging 
Those are decorated edges with a deliberately inked and patterned design.
@compoundchem there should be an "old book" perfume.
@herrold A quick google suggests that more than one perfume manufacturer has given it a go!
@compoundchem links or it doesn't exist.
In the late 1960's my dad visited his home nation of Poland and returned with a book of colour plates on the Sputnik program printed in Russia.
It had a curious, indescribable odor, one I'd never encountered before and never since: a pungent solvent, soft cheese and earth-like emanation one receives in that part of the olfactory system between the eyeballs and in back of them.
Sniffing it was like picking at a scab one can't leave alone.
I've never forgotten it.
Boosted, you talented book-Somellier 
@Lxznie das ist für dich. 
@compoundchem No mention of mildew, very common in old books and the main reason I had to give them up.
@compoundchem
Somewhat like the 'World Series' in baseball which is solely America (and one team in Canada if they manage it)
@compoundchem Just don‘t lick em 
There was another toot today (in German) about several libraries discovering arsenic as part of green print in older books, so they had to remove them from the open shelves …
@compoundchem This is fantastic. Do you have one for whisky?