Musty Books - a How To

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I love books but I dislike the smells that sometimes come with them. I'm not talking about that nice smell that old books have, just the musty, damp, ikky smell you sometimes come to sniffing when you turn their crusty pages. But I'm not one to let the damp musty smell of a book stop me from purchasing it especially if I can try and get rid of it. I remember buying a copy of Dr. Zhirago which smelt of turps from a box outside a house in Ravenscar and leaving it in the greenhouse the entire summer to try and get rid of the smell, only for the book to dry out too much that the pages fell apart from the binding. At least I tried.

But with this background and love for a random experiments (you might remember my experiment with nail whiting and denture tables and lemon juice) after purchasing a tonne of 1970's cookbooks from what we'd call a damp house in Walled Lake that hasn't been opened to air for a while I knew I had to try and rid them of the smell before I could do anything with them. So aside from leaving them by an open window, google searches suggested using coffee granules and cat litter (not together mind you) to try and decrease the presence of the musty smell. So I did. You basically pour your substance into a tub and then place into a larger container say an airtight box or zip bag and leave for as long as you can, even a good couple of days can do the trick. Or so they say.

And the results were interesting, granted the open air idea would be ideal - if you have the time and the place to leave old books to the open air. Our grumpy landlords ban you having anything on the windowsill so I have to be careful about leaving items on there. Surprising coffee granules were the outright winner - who knew!

PS - with all the forthcoming changes to GFC you can also follow LOTS on Bloglovin - it's the future and all.