The Secret of Scent

This is a book by Luca Turin on the science of smell and perfume chemistry as well. It is a sort of scientific companion more or less to Chandler Burr's The Emperor of Scent that I reviewed a while back; it isn't that scientific, so don't panic if you aren't great at science. Turin's work is a main subject in both books.

Turin's book gives a lot of background into the perfume industry, especially on materials in important smell categories. Perhaps the main focus is to demonstrate that the vibrational theory of smell makes sense as opposed to the shape theory.

Turin writes in an irreverent and amusing way. The book is somewhat technical, but never dry and boring. Give it a try if you'd like to know a little more about the science in this area without getting overly technical.