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What the Nose Knows
Jul. 8th, 2008 09:23 amby Avery Gilbert
This book is sub-titled: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life
More apt subtitle: Smells and their Appearance in Pop-culture.
Whether you like this book depends on why you wanted to read it. It contains a great deal of information about how and where scent appears in modern culture, from the people spritzing you in the mall to the advent of Smell-O-Vision to the appearance of scent in dozens of literary sources.
Unfortunately, in the 238 pages of writing there's very little science. A few tidbits of scientific fact are thrown out among the references to Garrison Keillor and James Joyce, but for the most part, this doesn't actually spend much time covering the science. If you want that, I'd suggest taking the money and putting it into a subscription to Scientific American Mind. Seriously.
So, what did I get out of it?
a)I did find the scientific name of the scent geosmin, the scent that rises from dry earth after a rainfall.
b)The Liang Limit--basically no one can separate out more than four scents at a time, if that.
c).....
Well, darn. Being that I wanted this book to be about science, I found this dearth rather frustrating. There's not a great deal of information here that I didn't already know before...that I had any interest in. Other people will love this book. It's just not for me.
This book is sub-titled: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life
More apt subtitle: Smells and their Appearance in Pop-culture.
Whether you like this book depends on why you wanted to read it. It contains a great deal of information about how and where scent appears in modern culture, from the people spritzing you in the mall to the advent of Smell-O-Vision to the appearance of scent in dozens of literary sources.
Unfortunately, in the 238 pages of writing there's very little science. A few tidbits of scientific fact are thrown out among the references to Garrison Keillor and James Joyce, but for the most part, this doesn't actually spend much time covering the science. If you want that, I'd suggest taking the money and putting it into a subscription to Scientific American Mind. Seriously.
So, what did I get out of it?
a)I did find the scientific name of the scent geosmin, the scent that rises from dry earth after a rainfall.
b)The Liang Limit--basically no one can separate out more than four scents at a time, if that.
c).....
Well, darn. Being that I wanted this book to be about science, I found this dearth rather frustrating. There's not a great deal of information here that I didn't already know before...that I had any interest in. Other people will love this book. It's just not for me.
