Lost a whole weekend to a book that smelled like a basement in Gary, and I almost made it worse

Wendy Gibson · 2026-10-19T15:40:03.62505+00:00

Heads up for anyone who grabs older paperbacks at swaps: check for that damp, musty smell before you bring them home, because I didn't and it cost me about 9 hours over a Saturday and Sunday last month. I stuck a stack of 1980s thrillers straight onto the shelf with my good books, and by morning the whole shelf smelled like a wet basement. My first fix was baking soda in a box, which did almost nothing for 3 days. Then a librarian friend told me to fan the pages open and set them outside in dry shade for 2 days instead of baking them in the sun, and that finally got the smell down enough to read. What I should have done first was air them out in a paper bag with crumpled newspaper for a week before they touched my shelf. Has anyone had luck with that newspaper trick, or do you just pass on the smelly ones at the swap?

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Lost a whole weekend to a book that smelled like a basement in Gary, and I almost made it worse | Book Swap Thread - Babble Community