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Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The sweet smell of the printed pages

And let's not forget the aroma of beautiful leather bindings.

I'm not convinced that the smell of books is all that seductive.  Instead, I tend to think of the time I unwrapped a three-volume set of the Betsy Wynne diaries, kept during the Napoleonic Wars.  I had paid out big bucks for this rare publication:  Betsy was of intense interest, because she was newly married to Captain Thomas Fremantle, and on board the frigate Inconstant when Horatio Nelson was carried on board with a gravely wounded arm.  The arm (his right) had to be amputated, and Betsy nursed him back to health and future fame.

But when I opened the package -- oh boy.  Whoever had pre-owned the set had been a chain smoker.  Until the set was well aired (it took about a year), I couldn't bear to read it, as just a few pages would have me sneezing and set my eyes to streaming.  What a pain!

So I could have done with the following product, perhaps, though who knows what it would have done to mere paper?

An aerosol e-book enhancer

New Book Smell

The smell of e-books just got better

Does your Kindle leave you feeling like there’s something missing from your reading experience?
Have you been avoiding e-books because they just don’t smell right?

If you’ve been hesitant to jump on the e-book bandwagon, you’re not alone. Book lovers everywhere have resisted digital books because they still don’t compare to the experience of reading a good old fashioned paper book.

But all of that is changing thanks to Smell of Books™, a revolutionary new aerosol e-book enhancer.
Now you can finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much. With Smell of Books™ you can have the best of both worlds, the convenience of an e-book and the smell of your favorite paper book.

Smell of Books™ is compatible with a wide range of e-reading devices and e-book formats and is 100% DRM-compatible. Whether you read your e-books on a Kindle or an iPhone using Stanza, Smell of Books™ will bring back that real book smell you miss so much.

Is it a joke?  Presumably -- but who knows?

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