Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World's Smells

The author describes the chemical reactions and physical processes that allow us to smell in ways that seem obvious as on is reading them, and leaves the reader with a new perspective that includes the gas phase of our existence, and how it connects us to the world we inhabit. Accessible, delightful, and packed with information!

I bought this for my partner, who'd already borrowed a copy from the library and liked it so much I thought he'd want his own copy for reference. I was right.Dang, this book is fun!

This book provides in-depth information about why things smell the way they do. What smells wonderful may contain undertones created by chemicals that, by themselves, l would be pretty awful. And vice versa. It helps to have some familiarity with organic chemistry, but that's not completely necessary. This reviewer does, and was fascinated by the relationship between chemical structure and "smelliness", but one doesn't need to go so deeply into the chemistry to enjoy this book.

This book is so interesting and a perfect one if you're a perfumer, a cook, mixologist, or do anything to do with smell or flavor. Basically its a huge book explaining what makes up all the glorious and not so glorious smells of the world. The naturally occurring aroma chemicals that make up the smells of fall leaves, the ocean, food, and so on. Anything you can think of. I think its especially useful for perfumers who build accords. I highly recommend!

Words fail me. (Almost) This book taught me a LOT about the smells of various foods, plants, animals, people, perfumes, and other stuff, and why we react as we do to smells. If this subject interests you even slightly, you will love this book.

Couldn’t wait to get this after I heard author interview with Terry Gross. I have an extensive cookbook library and this fits nicely into the science of food section. Interesting for the science-minded.

My wife is convinced she is a super smeller... I got her this book and she enjoyed it, got her nose out of the novels and into some science for a little while.

Being a fan of Harold McGee's previous book, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, I had to read his latest. It didn't disappoint. It was a somewhat difficult read because there is so much technical information in the form of chemical names and structures that my reading proceeded slowly. McGee makes it clear in the beginning of the book that there are many approaches to the book. I chose to mostly ignore the chemical names. McGee's writing is very engaging and inspired me to become more of an intentional sniffer and get into the habit of "listening to smells. Some people will view this book as more of a textbook than a casual read.The first of the five sections of the book describes primordial smells, followed by animal, plant, land, and water smells, followed by the smells of food and fragrances.My takeaways included:Humans have a strong sense of smell. A 2014 study estimated that the human nose "could distinguish, in theory, up to a trillion different odors. The only problem is, it's very hard to describe most scents. We can classify shapes and colors precisely and have hundreds of sound words to differentiate booms and bangs from buzzes and beeps. With smells, however, most of us are left groping. We just don't have a vocabulary for odors beyond vague descriptors like "wet dog" or "chemically."We have 400 odor receptors that work with each other to distinguish smells.McGee writes that we mentally categorize smells based on where we first encounter them. And it turns out that "smell is the most important sense when it comes to distinguishing among different foods. Taste and smell together make the flavor. But taste only really tells us about fundamental sensations. It's the sense of smell that gives us all the variety."The molecules we smell today got their start as the universe' cooked.' We have receptors for specific smells, like eggy, sulfurous hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia. There are other things we don't smell, like methane.McGee writes, "plants and animals smell different, and plants smell better, particularly after death." He describes the process of death and resulting smells this way: "When an animal dies, its unmanaged enzymes begin to break down its tissues, microbes gain entry and feed and generate metabolic wastes, fees, and beetles attracted by all these volatiles lay eggs that hatch into hungry maggots the produce their waste, and eventually solid flesh liquefies." Plus, we learn that animal excrement is very different in smell. Horse excrement is less offensive than beef and dairy cattle because of the types of food they eat.The earliest physicians found that the way people smelled often indicated medical conditions. Foul breath may indicate a damaged liver. A honey-like smell of the urine could indicate diabetes.Why does poop smell? "Excrement is malodorous because the colon is airlines, and the gut microbiome is anaerobic. As microbes break down, they produce a smell when they leave the body.Benjamin Franklin proposed studying why farts smell. He knew that the smell was affected by what we eat but hoped to find the diet to elevate the problem.The smell of our breath is caused by the bacterial breakdown of microbes of the food we eat. But even if we haven't eaten in the morning, we wake with 'bad breath' because there hasn't been enough saliva to wash away the bacteria.Our feet have a quarter of a million sweat glands that release moisture, minerals, and glucose sugar. When the chemicals are not broken down, we develop a sweaty-foot cheesy smell.I feel bad for not raving about this book. McGee has done his research, but I sometimes thought he wanted to write an organic chemistry book instead of something for non-scientists. His examples were fascinating, but I got lost in some of the chemistry.

This was bought as a gift.The contents maybe interesting, I haven’t investigated those yet, but for an expensive book it feels somewhat cheap.Yes, it’s thicker than I was expecting and the design and layout are good but I was expecting it to be cloth bound and printed on much better quality paper. It has the feel of a cheap paper back. First impressions count.

Everything you wanted to know about smell and scents but we afraid to ask. I did my undergraduate thesis on Smell and Memory back in 1997. I wish i had this book then. Great book. Expand your smelling mind, and an unappreciated sense

Product arrived in good time, but cover was slightly damaged and dirty. Bought as a Christmas present so had to clean it myself before giving as a gift. I was able to get most of the dirty marks off but still has some dents.

Muy teórico, concienzudo, el estilo total de Harold McGee.No creo que llegue a ser un clásico pero sin duda es interesante y es de los ensayos que te hacen click por dentro y te ayudan a ver las cosas de manera diferente.El capitulo de la historia y las hipotesis de como se desarrollo nuestro sistema olfativo es especialmente revelador.

This book is a real trip: it encourages the reader to imagine odours coming from the birth of the universe, the origins of life, plants, animals, etc. A great narrative idea mixing science and sensory phenomenology.