- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Crown Publishing Group, Division of Random House Inc; First Edition edition (1 Jun 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 140008234X
- ISBN-13: 978-1400082346
- Product Dimensions: 16 x 2.9 x 24.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 378,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life
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Product Description
Review
The Royal Society Science Book Prize-winner will be announced a week today...We humans can recognise around 10,000 different smells, with the blind being even more sensitive, and smokers substantially less. Or at least, that's what we believe: in reality, those are among the many myths and exploded by Gilbert in this wide-ranging review. But he does more than merely debunk: he shows how, for example, scent has the ability to influence us even when we can't consciously detect it. Oddly, however, there's nothing on one of the great mysteries of scent science: how air fresheners work. --The Daily Telegraph, 8 September 2009
This book is rich in anecdote and scholarship and the writing is not to be sniffed at either --The Guardian, 8 September 2009
"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."
--New Scientist, 8 July 2009
This book is rich in anecdote and scholarship and the writing is not to be sniffed at either --The Guardian, 8 September 2009
"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."
--New Scientist, 8 July 2009
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.
• 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
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Avery Gilbert is a very entertaining writer with a beautiful turn of phrase. He also seems to loathe Europeans of all varieties, which is interesting to read about, especially when you are one. He also loathes Chandler Burr, the New York Times perfume reviewer, which seems a little harsh.
He's the master of the enraged rant, and will whip out his sharpened pen and jab it in the direction of sloppy science and unsustainable assumption wherever he finds it. He rants at Proust for being quoted regularly when the subject of scent, taste and memory arise and cites American writers who are far more skilled at evocative description. It was hardly Proust's fault; he never claimed to be an expert on olfaction. But after all, he was French so he seems to deserve everythig he gets.
Gilbert also has a rant at a European sales assistant who ignorantly suggesedt using the thick end of a perfume blotter to spray the sample instead of the thin end. I was taught that you dip the thin end and spray onto the thick end; that's why they are made with a thick end and a thin end. Otherwise they might as well be thin all the way along. Wrong, apparently. I'm merely demonstrating my European stupidity and lack of class.
Then there's his rant about fictional extra-terrestials being depicted with no nostrils, as if a scent of smell is something that beings of a higher intelligence don't need. Well, my toy extra-terrestrial has nostrils, and so does ET, great big huge ones with which he follows a trail of M&M's. It's true that scent has been negelected until recently in serious science, but the ET argument doesn't hold up.
The chapter where he traces the 10,000 scents theory is great, although since proved not strictly correct. In fact the whole book is great but the style of writing does remind me of Basil Fawlty when he loses his rag completely: erudite, scathing and bordering on the hysterical. If you are interested in the science of smelling, human perception, the pschology of scent, and how easily we can be fooled into believing we are smelling something we are not, you've got to read it.
In his book and in his blog, Avery Gilbert is gobsmackingly rude, not just about dead European writers but to living scientists he doesn't agree with. What the Nose Knows isn't merely cricital, it's astonishingly bitchy. I don't know how he sleeps at night.
On the huge question of how the brain perceives scent, whether it's shape or vibration, I recommend that you read both this, and Chandler Burr's book The Emperor of Scent. Gilbert doesn't think it's a question; the answer for him is shape. I'd disagree, but I'm terrified of him. And he looks so sweet and mild in his author photograph...
He's the master of the enraged rant, and will whip out his sharpened pen and jab it in the direction of sloppy science and unsustainable assumption wherever he finds it. He rants at Proust for being quoted regularly when the subject of scent, taste and memory arise and cites American writers who are far more skilled at evocative description. It was hardly Proust's fault; he never claimed to be an expert on olfaction. But after all, he was French so he seems to deserve everythig he gets.
Gilbert also has a rant at a European sales assistant who ignorantly suggesedt using the thick end of a perfume blotter to spray the sample instead of the thin end. I was taught that you dip the thin end and spray onto the thick end; that's why they are made with a thick end and a thin end. Otherwise they might as well be thin all the way along. Wrong, apparently. I'm merely demonstrating my European stupidity and lack of class.
Then there's his rant about fictional extra-terrestials being depicted with no nostrils, as if a scent of smell is something that beings of a higher intelligence don't need. Well, my toy extra-terrestrial has nostrils, and so does ET, great big huge ones with which he follows a trail of M&M's. It's true that scent has been negelected until recently in serious science, but the ET argument doesn't hold up.
The chapter where he traces the 10,000 scents theory is great, although since proved not strictly correct. In fact the whole book is great but the style of writing does remind me of Basil Fawlty when he loses his rag completely: erudite, scathing and bordering on the hysterical. If you are interested in the science of smelling, human perception, the pschology of scent, and how easily we can be fooled into believing we are smelling something we are not, you've got to read it.
In his book and in his blog, Avery Gilbert is gobsmackingly rude, not just about dead European writers but to living scientists he doesn't agree with. What the Nose Knows isn't merely cricital, it's astonishingly bitchy. I don't know how he sleeps at night.
On the huge question of how the brain perceives scent, whether it's shape or vibration, I recommend that you read both this, and Chandler Burr's book The Emperor of Scent. Gilbert doesn't think it's a question; the answer for him is shape. I'd disagree, but I'm terrified of him. And he looks so sweet and mild in his author photograph...
1 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Whether you are a perfume hobbyist, a science geek, or just "nosey", this is a really interseting read. Great for dpping into.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
10 reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
A Fabulous Summer Read
9 July 2008
Format:Hardcover
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.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
A pundit writes about smell: insightful, irreverent and scholarly
3 Aug 2008
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Strong literary flavor, masking complex scientific overtones
1 Dec 2008
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I enjoyed this well-written book, and learned a lot from it. It is often brilliantly funny. Avery Gilbert covers the history of the subject in great detail. Some of the minutiae about the history of smell in the movies had me skipping pages but might be very useful for someone in marketing or advertising. The clinical account of anosmia is better than in most neurology texts. He is a very perceptive literary critic, with the ability to convey the impression of having read through whole books by Faulkner and of reading Proust in French.
Some aspects of the hard science are skimped. He does not exactly explain what Buck and Axel got the Nobel Prize for. There is almost nothing about neuroanatomy and there are no tables or illustrations, although there are ample references. Someone with a serious interest in the field might want also to read Chapter 34 by Dodd and Carellucci, in Kandel's ""Principles of Neuroscience."
The fundamental difference between the way the brain deals with smell and other sensations is only touched on in a quotation (a very apposite quotation) from Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1858. Pheromones are not in the index.
The central puzzle is why we human beings have lost so much of our sense of smell. Gilbert's main answer is to insist that we haven't lost as much as we think. That is one aspect of the problem. It's especially important as a problem because of the strange way humans, especially males, select preferred sex objects. Humans have all the brain structures in place to be sexually motivated by smell, as are the other apes, but this ability got hi-jacked by vision somewhere along the evolutionary way.
Some aspects of the hard science are skimped. He does not exactly explain what Buck and Axel got the Nobel Prize for. There is almost nothing about neuroanatomy and there are no tables or illustrations, although there are ample references. Someone with a serious interest in the field might want also to read Chapter 34 by Dodd and Carellucci, in Kandel's ""Principles of Neuroscience."
The fundamental difference between the way the brain deals with smell and other sensations is only touched on in a quotation (a very apposite quotation) from Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1858. Pheromones are not in the index.
The central puzzle is why we human beings have lost so much of our sense of smell. Gilbert's main answer is to insist that we haven't lost as much as we think. That is one aspect of the problem. It's especially important as a problem because of the strange way humans, especially males, select preferred sex objects. Humans have all the brain structures in place to be sexually motivated by smell, as are the other apes, but this ability got hi-jacked by vision somewhere along the evolutionary way.
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