Capn’s Reviews > A Walk Out of the World > Status Update
Capn
is on page 29 of 192
Cornstarch WORKED! Back to acceptable levels of mustiness! Forgot to put starch between a single pair of pages, and those pages did smell more strongly. So you have to powder each and every page, which = a lot of clean-up (water soluble, at least - kitchen sink!). Not efficient, though. For a whole box, I'd try rice as per Hilary, or dehumidifiers (hoard and repurpose all those little silicon drying packets?)
— Dec 03, 2022 07:00AM
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Capn’s Previous Updates
Capn
is on page 191 of 192
Finished, but will have to sleep on it to decide what to say about it. ;)
— Dec 06, 2022 02:44PM
Capn
is on page 120 of 192
Might review this as "Tolkien-lite", alongside the Alderley books of Garner: warm-up to the big show of LotR when attention spans can cope.
A White City with usurper ruler in place of the exiled king, sentient forests, dwarves under mtns (& kobolds), bird spies, a council called, a party of diverse characters against poor odds, Lady Iorwen is white and ancient yet young (sees images in fire), Angwen is her decendant
— Dec 05, 2022 12:48PM
A White City with usurper ruler in place of the exiled king, sentient forests, dwarves under mtns (& kobolds), bird spies, a council called, a party of diverse characters against poor odds, Lady Iorwen is white and ancient yet young (sees images in fire), Angwen is her decendant
Capn
is on page 28 of 192
(Temp. disruption: in cornstarch. Didn't fit in the rice container. Will update on efficacy of the cornstarch vs. musty old book smell technique!)
— Dec 02, 2022 07:41AM
Capn
is on page 27 of 192
It's available for free on OpenLibrary!!! :D
So the question now is: do I lob this dank and musty book into a jar of rice, and then follow-up with Bob Villa's cornstarch trick (dude has NEVER let me down..!) and read the online version? Or do I stick the stink out? (It's either getting better with use, or I'm going nose-blind).
— Dec 02, 2022 05:58AM
So the question now is: do I lob this dank and musty book into a jar of rice, and then follow-up with Bob Villa's cornstarch trick (dude has NEVER let me down..!) and read the online version? Or do I stick the stink out? (It's either getting better with use, or I'm going nose-blind).
Capn
is on page 11 of 192
...anyone got any solution for VERY musty old books? Bob Villa says cornstarch overnight. I'm compelled to try this, because the microbes that eat paper might prefer to much much starch than cellulose, and also because the kitty litter and baking soda and newspaper (and dryer sheets, urgh - I don't want to ADD more stink!) methods are all week-long endeavours.
Are there odor-absorbing bookmarks?
— Dec 01, 2022 08:51AM
Are there odor-absorbing bookmarks?
Capn
is starting
Thank you, SEM, for this recommendation. :) Book one of the FANTASY READATHON at Middle Grade Madness: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
— Dec 01, 2022 07:49AM
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The starch also stuck to each 'foxed' mark, so I guess it really was siphoning off dampness.
Going to vacuum the whole thing now, for good measure. ;)
But seriously - dessicating, scented bookmarks.... there's a market!!!
Definitely not practical for the number of books I have and destructive in its way. :( Many of these solutions focus on moisture removal but with books that became mildewed decades ago, the moisture is long gone. It's just smell. And in spite of the claims of various products, removing smells is hard.
If you like artificial pizza stink (?!), Amazon sells scented bookmarks:Oh right - can't link to "30 Pieces Scented Bookmarks Scratch and Sniff Bookmarks Fruit Food Theme Bookmarks Sayings Bookmarks Assorted Scented Bookmarks Cute Bookmarks for Students, Teens, Food Lovers, 10 Styles"
Sold out, anyway.
I can just imagine the combination of mildewy book stink + imitation pizza..... :S Horrendous!
So it could always be worse....!
Left old pages feeling silky, but I have a terrible suspicion that it'll be shedding cornstarch for life now, in spite of a very thorough dusting.
So sadly, Sem, it's probably not very helpful for a whole collection of books. :(