Colm O'Regan: The smell of old books is a scent that defies simile but also one that smells like a colour

As the nights and the curtains draw in, I find myself inexorably drawn to the musty delights of the secondhand bookshop. I might set off for town to buy Cif but then I wake up hours later with a guide from 1983 called ‘How To Get The Most From Your Personal Computing Machine’ which has an entire chapter on rewinding the tape.

The second hand bookshop has everything. Yes they do become dumping grounds for Dan Brown Novels. Multiple copies of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons line the shelves like sound-proofing. There are also many books on sassy girls-about-town negotiating the dating jungle. They have blurbs such as: “Tracey Palmer