Avery N. Gilbert

Avery Gilbert is a smell scientist. He's conducted research on human odor perception in academic laboratories and in the R&D divisions of multinational perfume companies. Along the way he's taught scores of audiences about the science of smell. What the Nose Knows is a fast-paced tour of the latest discoveries and how they challenge long-held beliefs about the sense of smell. It was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Science & Technology, and was shortlisted for the 2009 Royal Society Prize for Science Books. Says Robert Chalmers in 2014: "What the Nose Knows is one of those rare books which is so entertainingly written that it is capable of captivating people who have no previous interest in what they might assume to be an esoteric subject. Other such works, I'd suggest, include George Plimpton's Fireworks . . ."