You first spied each other at the library, or the indie bookstore, or over a rack of yellowing hardcovers at a second-hand store. The attraction is undeniable. It's time to make a move. Entice your beloved by smelling like the thing he or she most desires. Make yourself smell like a book.
不少人在圖書館一見傾心，或者在獨立書店，或者在二手書店的一堆泛黃色的硬皮舊書旁。這是一種無法抗拒的吸引力。現在你可以更容易創造機會了。用氣味給那些愛書的心上人致命一擊：讓你自己聞起來就像一本書。

"Book smell" is now a thing in the perfume world, like vanilla or sandalwood. In the last few years, dozens of products have appeared on the market to give your home or person the earthy scent of a rare book collection.
跟香草和檀香一樣，“書香”現在真的成為了香水世界的一員。在過去幾年中，市面上已經有了幾十款讓你或者你家變得書卷氣十足的香水。

Sweet Tea Apothecaries sells Dead Writers Perfume, which promises to evoke the aroma of books old enough for their authors to have passed to the great writers' retreat in the sky. Perfumer Christopher Brosius's "In the Library" product line makes your home and body smell just like that. The high-end fragrance Paper Passion claims to capture the "unique olfactory pleasures of the freshly printed book," though for roughly $200 per bottle it's a lot cheaper to just buy a freshly printed book.
“甜茶藥房”就在出售“死去的作家香水”，它承諾可以讓使用者感受古老書籍的氣息，帶領你跟天堂里的已故作者作神交。調香師克里斯多夫?布羅修斯出品的“在圖書館里”系列香水可以讓你的家和身體跟圖書館一個味。高端香水“紙之激情”聲稱這款香水復制了“剛印刷好的書本的獨一無二的嗅覺享受”，然而這瓶香水的單價是200美元，足以買上一堆油墨味未散的新書了。

The appeal of old books' smell has been studied in depth. Wood-based paper contains lignin, a chemical closely related to vanillin, the compound that gives vanilla its fragrance. As the pages age and the compounds break down, they release that signature scent. An experienced rare book handler can date a volume by scent alone, according to the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers.
人們曾經深入研究過舊書的氣味。木漿做成的紙含有木質素，一種跟香草醛相關的化學物質，香草的香氣主要來源于這種化合物。隨著紙張變舊，化合物開始分解，它們就會散發出那種標志性的味道。根據國際古舊書商聯盟的介紹，有經驗的藏書者甚至可以嗅一嗅氣味就知道書的年代。

Furthermore, scent is strongly tied to memory. Just as the scent of sunscreen or fresh-cut grass can suddenly evoke memories of childhood summers, for the bookish among us the scent of old manuscripts recalls pleasures like reading an old classic, or scouring a library or used bookstore.
不僅如此，這種氣味還跟記憶緊密相連。就像防曬霜或者剛修剪的草坪的氣味可以突然喚起童年夏日的記憶一樣，舊書卷的氣味同樣會讓愛書的我們聯想到閱讀一本經典好書或者泡圖書館或二手書店的經歷。

There's also the nostalgia element. The paper used for books today contains much less lignin than that of old volumes. That reissue of Hemingway is never going to smell as nice as a first edition, no matter how long it stays on your shelf. A book that smells like a book is a relic of how we used to spend time. Decades from now, will it be possible to bottle the scent of "Nights Alone on the Couch With Netflix"?
此外還有懷舊的因素。現在的書籍用紙比過去含的木質素少得多。重訂版的海明威選集聞起來肯定沒有第一版的氣味那么好，無論它們在你的書架上吃了多久的灰。書要聞起來像書，這是人們追憶過去的情懷。也許幾十年后，市場上會出現“獨自坐在沙發上看奈飛視頻網站的夜晚”味的香水。

Vocabulary

indie: 獨立的
sandalwood: 檀香
apothecary: 藥劑師；藥房，藥店
olfactory: 嗅覺的；味道的
lignin: 木質素

英文來源：Quartz
中文來源：煎蛋網
審校&編輯：丹妮