Petrichor?
Obscure Doctor Who reference!
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That and Douglas Adams obviously! I never met Terry though.
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Arsenic green is so pretty. 
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A whole thread of people longing for the scent of old books? That scent is called mildew. 
:
Also, why it is good to have a lot of unread books:
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It’s not, though. Mildew is a fungus growing on things. Old book smell comes from the chemical decomposition of the thing itself.
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The last thing I did when I retired in April from my job as a librarian at a rare books collection was to take a tour around the stacks and smell the air, and shelve some books, which was full circle for me, since I started as a page, shelving books, over 40 years ago.
Edited; it was over 50 years ago that I started as a page. Time flies.
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… only Vonnegut characters get to meet the author
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The scent that does it for me is the scent of freshly baked banana bread, which is not quite right, because it isn’t made with Gros Michel bananas, which it would have been when I was a child. There are echoes, but I’ll never smell the real thing again.
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Mildew is present in old books too. Until recently, school systems turned off their a/c in the summer to save money and for maintenance. The humidity in those libraries would soar. Also, people keep books in boxes in unconditioned attics, storage rooms, and garages. When those books show up at the used book store, they smell like mildew.
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Oh yeah, of course. But that’s not what this thread is about. Nobody likes the smell of mildew or old cigarette smoke or the other things antiquarian books sometimes smell like.
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And old pulp magazines smell like vinegar; sharp and acidic.
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I met Douglas Adams a couple of times though.
I don’t remember so well but I was a teenager and I think I was too shy to tell him I, Rob McKenna, was in fact a rain god.
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I spent many years in the print trade and I can tell you the smell of new books is pretty great also.
Perhaps it’s the smell of promise? Of a deal to transport you to realms new?
To test this theory to it’s fullest I am going to write my next novel exclusively using the medium of socks.
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… are you visiting Las Vegas this week 
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Apparently Antimony Crystals are very beautiful.
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Mark Frauenfelder hit on this back when.
Remember that godawful cigar smoking craze in the early aughts? I buy a lot of used books online and damn did books impound the smell of cigars alltoowell.
The only thing that worked to diminish the cigar smell was putting sheets of fabric softener tissues in betwixt the pages.
Some of you riffing on volatile compounds and “notes” (love the metaphor from wine via music!?) are inspiring. I’m approaching Social Security age and I’m happy to be in a virtual space with others who love to bask in the odors of their books too. Every book I’ve ever read since a child I’ve taken the time to smell. It’s almost an autonomic response, but I think more like “there’s that smell again…” and some sort of short reverie it evokes. They’re all different. I haven’t obtained names for notes and overtones, nor do I trust my identification of smells; my approach seems primitive at this point but it works.
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I think that there is even a difference between a new book in the store and a new book in your home.
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Cool topic.
Neither the article or the video seemed to note any kind of approximate “cutoff” as to what constitutes a modern book.
Are the books that I have which are 40 or 50 years old… old? Are they modern?
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I’ve bought a few books lately that I was not smitten with their smell. A month closed in a plastic box with baking soda seemed to improve things. Put a piece of paper over front and back cover because little microscopic particles of baking soda can stick and cause a gritty feel (and maybe minor damage)
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