Can you judge a book by its odour?

Cocoa, wood, rusks – every book has a distinctive smell. And each smell says something about how and when it was made, and where it has beenWhat does it mean to experience a book? To a bibliophile such as Alberto Manguel, smell plays an important part. In a talk at the British Library this week, the one-time protege of Jorge Luis Borges and director of the National Library of Argentina said he was particularly partial to old Penguin paperbacks, which he loved for their odour of “fres