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What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life | 
 enlarge | Author: Avery Gilbert
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $11.97
You Save: $11.98 (50%)
New (31) Used (7) from $11.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 4806
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 140008234X
Dewey Decimal Number: 612.86
EAN: 9781400082346
ASIN: 140008234X
Publication Date: June 24, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. 100% money back guarantee. All books shipped from Strand Bookstore, New York City, USA.
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Product Description
• How many smells are there? And how many molecules would it take to create every smell in nature, from roses to stinky feet?
• Who was the bigger scent freak: the perfume-obsessed Richard Wagner or Emily Dickinson, with her creepy passion for flowers?
• By scenting the air in stores, are retailers turning us into subliminally controlled shopping zombies?
• Were Smell-O-Vision and AromaRama mere Hollywood fads or serious technologies?
Everything about the sense of smell fascinates us, from its power to evoke memories to its ability to change our moods and influence our behavior. Yet because it is the least understood of the senses, myths abound. For example, contrary to popular belief, the human nose is almost as sensitive as the noses of many animals, including dogs; blind people do not have enhanced powers of smell; and perfumers excel at their jobs not because they have superior noses, but because they have perfected the art of thinking about scents.
In this entertaining and enlightening journey through the world of aroma, olfaction expert Avery Gilbert illuminates the latest scientific discoveries and offers keen observations on modern culture: how a museum is preserving the smells of John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row; why John Waters revived the “smellie” in Polyester; and what innovations are coming from artists like the Dutch “aroma jockey” known as Odo7. From brain-imaging laboratories to the high-stakes world of scent marketing, What the Nose Knows takes us on a tour of the strange and surprising realm of smell.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Could smell sweeter... October 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am an amateur student of olfaction and am fascinated by how smell works. The chemistry, the biology, even the physics of it are interesting to me, and learning about smell has opened up a whole new world to explore. This book is filled with facts and some amusing tidbits. But as a compelling read or engaging prose it was disappointing. You may ask, how can a book on the science of smell be compelling story-telling? All I can say is this: Chandler Burr's books (The Emperor of Scent, The Perfect Scent) and even the small scholarly tome by Luca Turin, The Secret of Scent, are fascinating, beautifully written, and by turns witty and erudite. Granted, Turin's theory of scent is probably faulty, but his writing and Burr's have a way of gripping the reader and making them really care about odd or even carbon chains. Mr. Gilbert's book is fine, but after reading it you have to wonder if this man has ever really loved a perfume, has ever considered the art that is the fruit of the science. I have no doubt of Mr. Gilbert's scientific prowess or success in industry but reading the book is like studying the facts under fluorescent light bulbs for too long; one longs for the brilliant sparkle of sunshine.
 An engaging read, mixing science with culture August 29, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Gilbert is an excellent writer and adroitly covers a lot of ground in the field of smell. Highly recommended for both scientists and civilians!
A pundit writes about smell: insightful, irreverent and scholarly August 2, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Many widely-held beliefs about smell are so plausible and so often-repeated that they have become accepted as fact although the evidence for them is often equivocal. In this book, the author traces the origins of these urban myths to uncover what is (and what is not) known about our sense of smell, pointing out soggy logic and supporting his arguments with an eclectic bibliography. These stories are relayed in a cheeky style from the perspective of someone who has seen and smelled it all. Credible pundits are rare and this book is excellent example of science writing for the general reader.
 Too much art, not enough science July 25, 2008
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
About: The science of scent. Topics covered include how many smells are there, categorizing odors, why things (such as pot or poo) smell the way they do, perfumes, representation of scents in literature and visual media (including Smellovision) and how scents affect our behaviors (such as while shopping).
Neat Things I Learned:
* Women's farts are stinkier but men fart more
* Women are better at smelling odor than men and have their highest sense of smell around ovulation
* Helen Keller, despite being blind and deaf, did not have a remarkable sense of smell
* Corona beer was originally poorly made and thus oxidized quickly, a lime's acid neutralized the off odor. Now Corona is well made, but the lime tradition lives on
* If you tell people a scent is relaxing, they'll relax when they smell it. Tell them the exact same scent in stimulating and they'll perk up. Scents are all in your head.
* Sniffing coffee beans doesn't "reset" your sense of smell, it's just a placebo effect
* Some companies have "logoscents." Westin hotels has a logoscent called "White Tea" that they put in their lobbies
Pros: Sources cited, concludes with a look to the future.
Cons: Far too much about smell and odors in the arts and not enough about the science of smell. So much so, that the subtitle could be called misleading.
A Fabulous Summer Read July 9, 2008
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
I'm a big fan of well-written, witty, evenly paced and interesting non-fiction books. Though I have no scientific background whatsoever, I'm partial to the science kind, and if the author can nimbly jump to making defensible philosophical or cultural points, so much the better. (Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma were excellent examples of the genre; David Quammen's Monster of God a pretty good, but somewhat flawed example; if you like this kind of stuff, you get the idea.) What The Nose Knows fits the bill perfectly for me. First, it's extremely well written: Gilbert has a distinctive voice, a knack for turning a phrase, and a strong and irreverent sense of humor. Second, it's interesting: like most folks, I never give the sense of smell its due, but Gilbert does. You want to know about Hollywood's effort to market movies that smell, or the science behind creating certain smells, or even how we smell? Here you go. Finally, it's evenly paced: there's a lot of information being exchanged, but it's not boring or didactic. Gilbert's like that interesting guy at the cocktail party who knows a lot about something you don't, but has a knack for making it understandable to you without dumbing it down. I give this book five stars, and strongly recommend it.
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