Breaking the mould.

In addition to finding a Captain Canuck comic book that was a long way from home while shopping in Cardiff, I also spotted a bit of a curiousity, which, really, is what I most love to find in a used book store.

In this case, it was The Other Sky, a hard cover collection of Keith Laumer stories published by Dobson Science Fiction*, an imprint that was completely new to me - and I have a LOT of books.  

Keith Laumer is a bit of a favourite author of mine, and that, coupled with the unknown provenance of the book's publisher, made it an easy purchasing decision at the modest price of ten pounds sterling - along with a pound and a half for the comic book.

However, the book had more than its share of the distinctive smell of old paper, with a touch of mould in the mix.  As such, I bagged it up tightly for the remaining few days of our trip and kept it out of my luggage for as long as possible.

Once home, I did some research on the topic of old book smell, and the internet advised that I seal up the book with the contents of a box of baking soda in an airtight container for a few days. I was a bit amused to find out that the easy solution was apparently the same as dealing with refrigerator odour, and added baking soda to the shopping list. 

Once equipped wth baking soda, I emptied out an appropriately sized plastic bin, dumped in the contents of the box, and put in a couple of vintage 35mm plastic film canisters as supports. 

I added the innovation of a few toothpicks to spread some of the pages out and provide more surface area for the process, and sealed up the box. 

I removed the lid three days later, and a cautious sniff revealed that there was still some lingering mustiness, but that it was overall much reduced.  I put the lid back on and gave it a full week of adeodorizing, and the result is an almost odourless book - voilà, the system works, as I like to say. 

- Sid

* As it turns out, Dobson Books was essentially a one-man publishing imprint run by one Dennis Dobson from 1944 until his death in 1978.  Based in London and described as "a small but very literary and somewhat idiosyncratic firm", Dobson published a wide range of science fiction in addition to its other offerings.  To my mild amusement, the Wikipedia listing for Dobson concludes with:

After his death the publishing company was wound down and his widow bought and restored Brancepeth Castle.

I love the implication that she was just waiting for Dennis to get out of the way so that she could ditch all of this publishing nonsense and follow her passion by buying a fixer-up fortification.