Over the years I have bought countless paperbacks from secondhand stores. Books written by Emily Dickenson, George Orwell, Charles Bukowski. Each one has a distinctive smell: silk linen, rusted steel, red wine. My copy of Don Quixote gives off an aroma of animal hair and rich tobacco.

I admit, my olfactory nerve may be a bit subjective, but the “used book smell” is most certainly real.

A tweet from 2014 is credited for first using the word “bibliosmia” – a combination of the Greek words for “book” and “smell.” Yet despite its growing popularity, the word is only recognized by a handful of dictionaries, online wiki pages, and bibliophiles like me.

Of course, we all knew old books had a distinctive odor, even if we never had a word for it. Perhaps all this time we misunderstood the idiom of having our “nose stuck in a book.” Maybe we weren’t reading at all, but merely sniffing the pages.

I once read that the used book smell, so abundant in libraries and secondhand shops, was due to chemicals like lignin and toluene, which when released, resemble the fragrance of vanilla and almonds.

Chemical reaction or not, I am still convinced my paperbacks by Gary Soto and Sherman Alexie have notes of dried earth and broken guitar strings. I cannot be convinced otherwise.

Many old books carry with them mementos of their previous readers. My copy of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is acrid, like a cocktail of citrus and vinegar. I imagine the previous owner carried the novel in a handbag, and upon realizing their perfume bottle had ruptured, kindly placed the book in their donate pile.

So many of my books tell tragic stories about the lives of their former readers. One of my copies of The Great Gatsby was salvaged from a flood. It has a prominent stench of mildew, so I keep it isolated, for fear of spreading its potency to its neighbors.

My copy of Ishmael has a few scorched pages and gives off strong notes of smoke and ash. I would hate to think it was spared from some warehouse fire where others did not escape. So instead, I visualize the reader lounging too close to a roaring fireplace.

I should be the last person to cast judgement on such crimes. I am guilty of imprinting smells onto many novels I have read. My copy of John Gardner’s Grendel has a soft aroma of pencil shavings, indicative of all my undergraduate marginalia.

My hardcover of Tara Westover’s Educated emits more than a hint of stale, dark roast coffee. One can imagine the sudden and disastrous event that happened while I was reading one morning. No need to pore over details.

Most commonly though, used books smell of dust, mothballs, or oak, not unlike old wine barrels or vintage furniture. Science will tell us this is due to the paper, ink, and glue breaking down over time and releasing odorous gases. Old age comes for us all, I suppose, even the crisp corners of our paperbacks.

But rest assured. There are a few ways to protect your library from carbon’s slow decay and that musty old-book smell. For starters, keep your books away from extreme temperatures and humidity. Also, it helps the cause if there are no pathogens, mold, dust mites, rats, or other critters that may gnaw on the spine.

As an extra precaution, keep your books away from children with sticky fingers and dogs who claim their territory. Avoid storing them in the basement, the attic, the kitchen, the bathroom, the bottom shelf, the top shelf.

Keep them far away from cigars, campfires, and all types of liquids. Do not store them in your purse, your car, or your gym bag. Avoid exposing them to excessive sunlight or impenetrable darkness. Avoid breathing on them, touching them, or defiling them with your eyes.

To be entirely sure though, if one is nauseated by the smell of old books, or bibliosmia as it’s now called, I might recommend switching to e-readers, which elicit the tantalizing fragrance of copper wiring and melted plastic.