Friends of the Parrot

Editorial Blogs

Tony Miksak

WORDS ON BOOKS by Tony Miksak for KZYX&Z-FM, 90.7 Philo CA
Airs Sunday, August 26, 2007 at 10:55 am, & Wednesday, August 29 at 1 pm1 pm

Title: Very Little Changes

(MUSIC UP) This is Tony Miksak with a few Words on Books.

You go away on vacation, you come back and it can seem like everything's changed.

In fact, very little has changed. We still have a nasty war eating up government money that could be better spent. We have droughts in the South and floods in the Midwest, and the inconvenient truth is the climate continues to evolve faster than we do.

While I was away someone invented the smelly e-book.

Reuters news service reports, "An electronic textbook Web site is launching a smelly e-book after finding college students like to be able to smell their books."

Oh yeah. "A survey of 600 college students... found that 43 percent of students identified smell, either a new or old smell, as the quality they most liked about books as physical objects."

Now there are smells, and there are SMELLS. Used book dealers have been known to locate storehouses in the high desert to avoid the moldy smells that go along with moisture in the air.

Everyone who reads already knows you can sniff a new book and get halfway high from the ink and paper. It's less well known that some library books smell like pork and cabbage served in Brooklyn in 1946.

Everyone who reads already knows that books from the 60's smell like flowers. From the 70's like a smoky disco. From the 80's like cigars. I don't think the 90's had a distinctive smell.

The survey... "found three out of 10 of students associated 'mustiness' with the books they most loved, although 16 percent associated best-loved books with the smell of 'freshly-ground coffee.'

I just figured out the book smell of the 90's: Parfum de Starbucks.

If you'd like to experience a smelly electronic textbook, and why would you, go to CafeScribe.com (http://cafescribe.com). With every text book purchased CafeScribe will send students a "scratch and sniff sticker with a musty 'old book' smell."

I had no idea you could do that. I want some of those smelly stickers to slap on my own books. I know what you're thinking: You're thinking Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Jelly Bean stickers on Harry Potter, Mississippi mud on Mark Twain, and, don't get me started, sexy bedroom smells on romance novels.

Really, very little changes. While I was away a survey appeared that declared liberals read more books than conservatives.

The very conservative National Review says it ain't so, and the Wall Street Journal agrees. Pat Schroeder, president of the American Association of Publishers, explained why liberals read more. She said, "It's pretty hard to write a book saying, 'No new taxes, no new taxes, no new taxes' on every page..." Liberals "can't say anything in less than paragraphs. We really want the whole picture, want to peel the onion."

The survey in fact dealt with a variety of reading habits, not just people's politics. But the political thing got everyone excited.

(MUSIC UP) Really, very little changes.

(MUSIC) As always, transcripts of Words on Books are available through the KZYX web site (and here: http://www.gallerybooks.com/bkm/index.html).

Notes:

The Reuters news report on Yahoo News:
News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070822/wr_nm/internet_books1_dc_1

CafeScribe: http://cafescribe.com/

USA Today's report on the reading survey:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-21-reading_N.htm?csp=34

Tony Miksak
Words on Books: http://www.gallerybooks.com/bkm/index.html
personal home page: http://amiksak.googlepages.com/home
Chi lascia la via vecchia per la nuova, sa quel che lascia e non sa quel che trova.

back to the top