Amateur archaeologist Mark Brown presents his latest discoveries.

Dig site: Antique mall in downtown Lawrence, Kansas.

Retail value: Ten bucks.

Appeal: The first thing to catch me was this volume’s horizontal orientation; I was about fifteen feet away and it pulled my attention away from a bakelite Art Deco telephone. As I approached I latched on to the salmon and linen colors, and realized I’d have to thumb through its pages. I raised an eyebrow when I was close enough to discern the semi-nude illustration. When I read the title, The Lure of the Limerick, I suspected I’d be making a purchase.

This book chronicles the history of the limerick and provides hundreds of examples and dozens of illustrations. The topic is interesting and has mass appeal—we all love raunchy rhymes—but what really makes this book a treasure, that something that compelled me fork over ten dollars, was that this particular copy smells like cinnamon. Old books have a particular smell, and I was taken aback as I leaned in to take a whiff. Cinnamon! If all books could so stimulate the olfactory we’d be a literate nation.