Cooking the books, you say? That may cause alarm among many, but not for the book collector! Modern technology has found a way to save those books that have been hidden away in dank cellars for years. One is, of course, never to store books in a damp area. And the next best idea is to throw away the worst offenders, the books that are clearly covered with mildew, for to shelve any book with the slightest sign of mildew is like introducing a fox into the chicken coop. The mildewed book will infect and eat away (eventually) all the books around it, one by one, by one. But there is hope for the book lover! And that hope comes in the form of the microwave oven. No, I'm not suggesting you set your house on fire (which certainly would be a possibility for those who are not attentive to what they're doing!) Simply cook the offending book for a minute at a time, fanning open the pages in between those minutes, until the odor of mildew disappears. No more than a minute at a time, though, or you'll have flames rather than microwaves destroying your book along with its mildew!
Two last notes of caution.
1) If you're not sure whether or not you have destroyed all the mildew, if you're in doubt, throw it out!
2) Only microwave books that have no metal in them (i.e., staples in binding, etc.)!!!!
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