Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely amazing book
Review: I've dabbled for years with essential oils and always was at a loss to describe their effects and sensations. The man that the book is telling us about is a true Victorian polymath: a multifaceted scientist, an effete snob, an accurate, passionate descriptive writer of the senses.
I laughed out loud dozens of times, was driven mad with desire to smell some of these substances and perfumes, was angered by the intransigence of the scientific community.
This is just a great and fascinating read, gliding effortlessly between topics with great irony and clarity.
Rating: 
Summary: A whiff of Intrigue
Review: If you enjoy reading about people that think outside of the box, this book is for you. Start with perfume, add quantum mechanics, several drops of ego and stir with panic of the scientific community. I loved it.
Rating: 
Summary: Absorbing (but uncritical) account of a new theory of smell
Review: In this absorbing book, Burr describes the fragrance industry and how scents are created and marketed, weaves a "scientific morality tale" of professional "corruption in the most mundane and systemic and virulent and sadly human sense of jealousy and calcified minds and vested interests," and attempts to explain and defend Luca Turin's novel theory of smell. He succeeds with the first two goals. Readers will learn about the seven "Big Boys" (the companies that create virtually all new scents) and how their chemists and perfumers produce fragrance. Whether you enjoy this aspect of the book depends, perhaps, on your interest in fragrance itself; the workings of these businesses fascinated me, but the descriptions of various scents (as well as Turin's remarkably nondescript reviews from his "perfume guide") struck me as tedious. Burr also portrays scientists as plagued by self-interest and laziness and resistance to new ideas. This suggestion always surprises lay audiences, but it is hardly news to readers of Thomas Kuhn or of science writing in general. Galileo, Mendel, the early proponents of the Big Bang Theory, and many others encountered the same hostility or indifference faced by Turin. The success of the third goal--detailing and defending Turin's olfactory research--is limited, however. On the one hand, Burr ably elucidates the prevailing theory--that we sense molecules by their shape--and raises the standard objections to this view. He then clearly presents Turin's theory: that smell results from molecular vibration (more specifically, from electron tunneling). Turin may ultimately be proven right, but Burr admits, "Though Turin has provided fascinating convincing preliminary evidence, there of course has to be independent confirmation by other labs before Vibration is accepted." On the other hand, Burr's commentary on Turin's research suffers from several weaknesses. First, Turin (and Burr) tend to see everything in black and white. Turin is especially prone to hyperbole, noting several times that "Everyone can smell as well as everyone else." This is nonsense. Everyone has different base perceptions, and some people have deficiencies that affect their olfactory ability. Turin himself argues that smoking may actually enhance smell and admits that some people mistake the stench of urine with the aroma of honey--two scents many of us have never confused. In the same vein, Turin's opponents are portrayed as unwavering absolutists. Burr depicts the reception toward Turin's talk at a conference as hostile, yet none of the audience's questions, although challenging and skeptical, strike me as unreasonable or outrageous. (Instead, it is Turin who seems unnecessarily defensive and condescending.) Second, Burr's book is entirely one-sided. He says, in a special author's note, that Turin's opponents refused to cooperate, but this argument is specious. Journalism is more than interviews. For example, even though "John Amoore had for years waged active war (via journal, Internet, and international conferences) against Vibration," Burr reprints not one word of this apparently awe-inspiring paper trail. Throughout, Burr transcribes page after page of Turin's gossip-filled, meandering conversations and e-mails exchanges, but he usually refers to the extensive scientific literature only when Turin supplies the reference. Most seriously, Burr tends to report many of Turin's statements uncritically. For example, Turin claims he discovered that proteins conduct electrons and that he thereby created a diode out of protein. Has this discovery been confirmed? Are there papers on this topic? Have other scientists used this finding? If so, how? (The only evidence Burr offers: Turin got the diode patented. There are, of course, thousands of patents for unworkable devices.) Likewise, on at least four occasions, Turin denounces any link between smell and sex. Ever since the discovery of pheromones in silkworms fifty years ago, hundreds of scientists have explored the relationships between neurology and scent and sex. Turin dismisses them all, even though he appears to have done no research on the matter himself--and Burr never questions this unsubstantiated assertion. Let's be clear: I'm not saying that Turin is wrong; rather, Burr comes across as Turin's publicist rather than a journalist who has confirmed Turin's statements, read the relevant articles, and tracked down the evidence. As a result, he probably won't convince researchers about the plausibility of Turin's fascinating new theory. "The Emperor of Scent" raises a stink but never really clears the air.
Rating:
Summary: An Engaging Story
Review: It's hard to believe this is non-fiction. It reads like a novel, gripping you all the way. The cast of characters is fascinating, and the central debate about science is so engaging. I am not expert enought to judge the science, but Chandler Burr skillfully takes us through the nuances of the work. I want to rush out and smell purfumes and other exotic things!
Rating: 
Summary: An interesting story undone by lugubrious writing
Review: Luca Turin may or may not be a genius, but it's hard to tell from this overly written fawning account which breaks nearly every rule of journalistic writing, zipping in and out of Turin's head, jumping between past and present, omitting several major pieces of information, and worst of all, getting facts out and out wrong. Maybe it was the perfume, but something seems to have gone to Burr's head because the book is laced with writing so overdone and flowery that if it were a perfume, it would an Avon special. There is a good story about the problems with the scientific process in here, but Burr doesn't get to it.
Rating:
Summary: Lyrical and Analytic, Harrowing and Hilarious
Review: Lyrical and analytic, harrowing and hilarious, a page-turner and a philosophical inquiry, Chandler Burr's THE EMPEROR OF SCENT employs its juxtapositions to jolt the reader's mind like a whiff of smelling salts. It snaps you into an amplified state of consciousness. At its most superficial level --- which would have been, in itself, deep enough to make for a satisfying book --- THE EMPEROR OF SCENT is Burr's chronicle of several years in the life of Luca Turin, a London-based, Italian-born scientist obsessed with the sense of smell. Turin, a rumpled character of Dickensian eccentricity, has both scientific and aesthetic fascinations with scent. On the verge of proving a groundbreaking (and likely Nobel-worthy) theory that combines biology, chemistry and physics to explain how smell works, Turin also publishes a lushly poetic --- and deeply personal --- guide to commercial perfumes. This is a man who can think of scents in terms of "7-transmembrane G protein receptors" but then goes on to analogize them to the sounds of a Beethoven string quartet or "the smell of liquid summer sunlight." Such a comprehensive intellect, readers will discover, provokes enormous discomfort in a cutthroat business and scientific landscape where many little hills have allowed for many little kings. Like Luca Turin, Chandler Burr, whose work on this book began as science journalism for The Atlantic, has the sort of voracious curiosity that makes him resist approaching his subject from a single angle. THE EMPEROR OF SCENT follows curlicued tangents into the academic politics that surround scientific publishing, the ruthless competition between the small handful of corporations that creates the smells of everything from toilet paper to Chanel No. 5, and the psychological importance of scent. The latter is addressed in one of the book's most poignant moments (yep, it's poignant too!), in which Turin discusses being upset at the alteration of classic perfumes: "When the big fragrance firms take L'Air du Temps and wreck it by having an accountant redraw the formula to take out the expensive ingredients and substitute cheap ones, what they are doing...is depriving thousands of people throughout the world of the thrill of the memories that are infused with L'Air du Temps, because unless it is the same smell, it won't trigger." Burr and Turin make for a perfect pairing of author and subject. Just as Turin's boundary-transcending insights connect traditionally segregated realms of academic research, Burr's writing deftly blends marvelously clear explanations of complex science with gripping descriptions of emotional drama and sensual delight. This dynamic duo weaves superficially disparate strains of information and impulse to create wonderfully coherent wholes. And they do it with ballsy panache. Here's Burr, after a more technical explanation, cleverly summarizing cyclopentadienyl-metal tricarbonyl molecules for lay readers: "They were basically molecular hamburgers, the two five-Carbon rings like buns with burgers of the various metal atoms slapped in between...The nickel burger had a nasty chemical oily smell." Here's Turin talking about nature versus nurture in the human perception of smell: "France is a country that understands...the range of smells that makes life interesting includes some rather severe ones...When they smell [Soumantrain, a particularly pungent cheese], Americans think 'Good God!' The Japanese think, 'I must now commit suicide.' The French think 'Where's the bread?'" Like a nickel-Soumantrain cheeseburger, THE EMPEROR OF SCENT is feast for interdisciplinary thinkers. --- Reviewed by Jim Gladstone
Rating:
Summary: Wow - fascinating - scathing
Review: Need some basics in chemistry/physics/biology, and helps if you are familiar with major perfume brands, but a GREAT read. Quirky characters. Edge of the seat story. Wanted a Hollywood ending, but then, this is life/art/science/business, and it isn't always what we want it to be. Now I have to rush out to Sephora and smell all the smells!
Rating:
Summary: "A tale...of jealousy, calcified minds, vested interests."
Review: Telling the story of Luca Turin, a French scientist who, in the mid-1990s, developed a revolutionary new theory about how we smell, Chandler Burr focuses on the evolution of the theory and why it has not led to a Nobel Prize. Turin, a controversial researcher, posited (and believes he proved) that scent is not determined by the body's ability to recognize the shape of molecules, the accepted explanation of smell. Instead, he believes that vibrations of electrons are recognized by a kind of "spectroscope" in our noses--that atoms with the same vibrations have the same smell even when they come from different elements.
Burr details Turin's experiments and his successful (he believes) searches for proof through the late 1990s. But he also describes Turin's unsuccessful attempts to be published in prestigious scientific magazines, his battles royal with other researchers, some of whom have rejected his ideas without reading his papers, and his disappointments with the "Big Boys," the world's seven biggest makers of perfumes, who would benefit directly if Turin were correct. Ultimately, Burr concludes that the scientific community and its attitudes toward Turin reflect their "scientific corruption, corruption in the most mundane and systemic [sense]."
For whatever reasons, Burr is unsuccessful in getting opposing scientists to discuss Turin's vibration theory in relation to their belief in a molecule's shape as a determinant of smell, and he ultimately presents a book that is biased in favor of Turin's work. By the end of the book, Burr has clearly abandoned any sense of impartiality and become a supporter of Turin. He inserts an Author's Note three-quarters of the way into the book to justify his inability to present an alternative viewpoint, concluding that scientific rejection of Turin's theory is the result of "vested self-interest and bad science."
Turin is clearly a difficult man, however, and his attitudes, reflected in humorous and sarcastic comments about other scientists and their ideas, may well have contributed to his lack of acceptance. Though one of his supporters praises him for being the first person to apply quantum mechanics to a physical problem, he also indicates that Turin's biggest flaw is his impatience. (In fact, Turin has already abandoned this work, moving on to a new project studying energy storage in cells.) Fascinating, though complex in its discussions of biology, chemistry, and physics, the book is also fun to read--the story of a maverick who had a great idea which no one takes seriously, at least not yet. Mary Whipple
Rating:
Summary: Smells like a best-seller
Review: That Luca Turin is a genius is undeniable. That he is also a lone fish fighting against a sedentary school is also a fact. Considering scientists such as Turin and Rupert Sheldrake (mentioned in the book), a Cambridge biochemist who was, more or less, dismissed as a crackpot when he started proposing theories that didn't sit well with the scientific establishment, it's a wonder that major discoveries are ever made at all! This book is a great tale of a great man with a great nose. You'll learn about the world of l'haute couture des parfumes, find out what things _really_ smell like, and perhaps pick up a bit of science on the way. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Science on the Fringe
Review: The Emperor of Scent is a fascinating, fun to read account of a man out on the scientific fringe. Chandler Burr, tells the story of Luco Turin, PhD in biology and a self described "Bio-physicist" who has been practically obsessed with smell all his life. Turin is clearly an expert when it comes to using his nose to decipher the mysteries of perfume. A book he authored on the subject has gained him access to the inner sanctum of the scent industry. In the course of his scientific and non scientific dabbling, Turin becomes interested in the theory of smell. The mainstream theory is that smell is based upon the shapes of molecules. But there are several problems with this theory, and as is sometimes the case, the scientific establishment refuses to deal with these problems rationally as too much is invested in the current theory. Turin resurrects an old theory. That smell is based upon how a molecules vibrate. This theory was considered preposterous in the past because the mechanism to measure this vibration seems too complex to be done biologically. Turin tackles this by proposing a plausible biological mechanism for tunneling electron microscopy or spectroscopy. He even finds some supporting evidence for this mechanism in scientific literature. Next Turin sets out to do some experimentation to provide evidence to support his theory. In physics there are theoreticians and experimentalists, In biology theory and experiment are the realm of the same individual or team. Turin seems to be a better theorist than an experimentalist. As it turns out biologists don't understand math very well. (fear of math may have been a reason for choosing that field) and Turin's theory is full of math. On the other hand physicists don't understand biology. Turin is caught in the middle. And no one wants to take him seriously. The Emperor of Scent spends many pages recounting Turin's attempts to be taken seriously. But he is an outsider who wants to upset the apple cart with a new theory only a multidisciplinary scientist such as he can really understand. He has little supporting evidence and is too impatient to spend years in a lab gathering the evidence he needs to support his theory. Instead he keeps leaping for the brass ring. While Chandler Burr is not very objective in his account he does tell an interesting story. This is not a scientific work, but a work of journalism. Burr's ultimate purpose may be to promote Turin's theory, but he also does a fine expose' of the scientific establishment at its' best. He also does a great job of introducing us to Luco Turin. A man out of the mold of Richard Feynman. Fun loving, entertaining, intense and monomaniacal at times. The Emperor of Scent is interesting on many levels. I learned a lot about smell, smells, and the fragrance industry. I also enjoyed the story of how a ball coming in from left field is handled by the scientific establishment. A very human story.
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