The Scent of a Book

Here's one important feature the iPad is missing: smell. New books have a clean, woody-inky aroma, reminiscent of the first day of school. Old books smell even better. Like parchment baked in sunlight, scented by the perfume of fingers touching the page.

I like to think there are design engineers working on the problem. How to synthesize Ye Olde Book Redolence and injection mold it into the spine of a Kindle. But I doubt that's the case. Smart designers are working on adding or improving the features that make sense for an ebook: color and capacity and integration of video.

Scent is just one reason that people will not soon give up on the printed book, no matter what else happens. Brain scientists tell us that the sense of smell is the most emotionally evocative of all. The accumulated emotions of years of reading are transmitted in that first whiff of a printed page.