Un article scientifique passionnant sur l’odeur des livres anciens, écrit par Emma Hollen, à découvrir sur son site W[o]nderings.
Extrait :
« The smell of decaying matter can rarely be described as a pleasant one. Yet few fragrances are as intoxicatingly comforting as that of an old book. Let’s take a nose dive into the history and the chemistry of this particular and beloved scent.
BOTH SWEET AND MUSTY, warm and sharp, it pervades second-hand bookshops and family attics, grandparents’ houses and closed cardboard boxes filled with memorabilia. Its strong evocative power even seems to have protected print books from the rise of e-books over the past years. More than the physicality of the object — the intimate connection between the pages and the tips of our fingers — it is the smell of paper that keeps us coming back to printed volumes and seek them on flea markets…»
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