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Books : The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of SmellIn association with Amazon.comby: Rachel Herz  List Price: $24.95 Amazon.com's Price: $16.47 You Save: $8.48 (34%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 152.166 EAN: 9780060825379 ISBN: 0060825375 Label: William Morrow Manufacturer: William Morrow Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 288 Publication Date: October 01, 2007 Publisher: William Morrow Release Date: October 09, 2007 Studio: William Morrow Sales Rank: 229291 Related Items:
Editorial Review: Product Description: Shakespeare wrote that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But if you cannot smell, does the rose lose its sweetness? The first and definitive book on the psychology of smell, The Scent of Desire traces the importance of smell in our lives, from nourishment to procreation to our relationships with the people closest to us and the world at large. Smell was the very first sense to evolve and is located in the same part of the brain that processes emotion, memory, and motivation. To our ancestors, the sense of smell wasn't just important, it was crucial to existence and it remains so today. Our emotional, physical, even sexual lives are profoundly shaped by both our reactions to and interpretations of different smells. Why do some people like a certain smell and others hate it? Is smell personal or cultural? How does smell affect our choices and our daily lives? Rachel Herz explores these questions and examines the role smell plays in our lives, and how this most essential of senses is imperative to our physical and emotional well-being. Herz investigates how our sense of smell functions, examines what purpose it serves, and shows how inextricably it is linked to our survival. She introduces us to people who have lost their ability to smell and shows how their experiences confirm this sense's importance by illuminating the traumatic effect its loss has on the quality of day-to-day living. Herz illustrates how profoundly scent and the sense of smell affect our daily lives with numerous examples and personal accounts based on her years of research. The wonders of our sense of smell are all explored in a compelling and engaging manner, from emotions and memory to aromatherapy and pheromones. For anyone who has ever wondered about human nature or been curious about the secrets of both the body and the mind, The Scent of Desire is a fascinating, down-to-earth tour of the psychology and biology of our most neglected sense, the sense of smell. Average Rating:
 Rating:  - Insightful and EngagingThe scent of desire has the aroma of delicious material presented in an elegant form. It teems with insightful facts about olfaction that are delightfully engaging. Dr. Herz manages to explain sophisticated research studies cogently but without losing out on accurate description, a very rare skill. The book will be enjoyable and informative for readers who are curious about human psychology and the neuroanatomy of smell. Aradhna Krishna Isadore and Leon Winkelman Professor, ... Read More Rating: - A compelling account of an intriguing subjectI was drawn to this book out of curiosity having recognized on reading the title that I was totally ignorant of the subject. The author pulled me in and kept me reading to find out more about this intriguing sense that provides such an intensive assist to experience. It is a compelling book - a good read but, more important, wonderfully informative. The reward is awareness of an aspect of life that has always been there but never consciously understood or valued. I am in her debt for that gift. Rating: - Excellent Popular ScienceI read a lot of popular science and the sense of smell is a topic I've always been curious about, so I was intrigued to buy this book. I'm so happy I did. This book is full of fascinating facts, findings and theories about smell and Rachel Herz has the rare talent (especially for an academic scientist) of translating complex scientific concepts and data into accessible, clear and engaging language. The personal anecdotes work like verbal illustrations for the experiments she discusses and make her ... Read More Rating:  - Science or soft science?I have always been interested in olfaction, and was looking forward to a lay-audience science-based book on the subject...but this isn't it. There are a few scientifically supported nuggets of information (hence the second star), but most of the book (repetively) cites anecdotally-based "evidence". Also, as already mentioned by a prior reviewer, the author does not resolve her conflicting statements that a) aromatherapy is based only on learned reactions to aroma, not physical effects, but b) "The positive ... Read More Rating:  - A very readable introduction to an Underappreciated SubjectThis book is a highly readable introduction to how smell works. While the author is a leading authority on the psychology of smell she also gives an accurate account of our current knowledge about the physiology of smell, including topics such as why smell can evoke such powerful emotions and the role of smell in memory. I just posted an interview of Rachel Herz on my Brain Science Podcast (but Amazon does not allow links in their reviews). You can find this in iTunes but the address is brainsciencepodcastdotcom. ... Read More Browse for similar items by category:
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