In my experience, bibliophiles tend to have the best noses. What is the correlation, you ask? Ask anyone who reads, they’d unflinchingly tell you how much they long for and love the smell of books, new or old, worn, fresh of the press or used. But very few take the pains to see the year of publication and imagine what the writer lived through to give you the masterpiece in sitting snugly in your nimble fingers. If you’ve been around a while in my blogosphere, you’d know how I admire murder mysteries and love stories with equal passion. I often encounter the rolling eyes when I tell them the M&B I’m halfway through. They see a template, I see something very different. Human beings are capable of falling in and out of very complex emotions with such strong intensity. I also get to visit cities, town, counties, which I’d probably never see in real life, even if I manage to take a vacation to some locales (like the one I’m reading now is set in Cape Town, South Africa).

That bring me to another question. Do you get this book smell in bookshops too? Does it drive you crazy? I for one pride myself on having a sharp (and long) nose, but I can’t distinguish book smells. I cant describe it in any way either. Does that make me less of bibliophile?