An NRC Handelsblad Book of the Year "This is a special book... It teaches readers a lot about olfaction. It teaches us even more about what philosophy can be."--Times Literary Supplement "Lively, authoritative... But the sense of smell--only recently attracting broader attention in neuroscience--doesn't work this way. So what does the nose tell the brain, and how does the brain understand it? A. S. Barwich turned to experts in neuroscience, psychology, chemistry, and perfumery in an effort to understand the mechanics and meaning of odors. She discovered that scents are often fickle and do not line up with well-defined neural regions. Upending existing theories of perception, Smellosophy offers a new model for understanding how the brain senses and processes odor.