My relationship with the library had started to deepen the way that comes from knowing your loved one well. Each time, before I entered, I would stand in my kitchen and peek through the sunroom door. The faint lemony scent that had been there when I moved in had now been fully replaced by the smell of old paper. Each hand that touched a book, that gently flipped the pages or pressed them down so the spine would lie flat or even bent the paperback around itself . . . each of these acts of devotion would release the delicious secret scent inside.
Is there anything quite like the smell of old, well-loved books? As you know from the beginning of the book, that was one of the main inspirations for the novel. And after being away from her sunroom library for a while, it would be such a pleasure for Dodie to realize that her little spot had begun to smell like a library!
