On the Scent - Paola Totaro and Robert Wainwright ***

When I started to read this book I wasn't aware of the significance of the second part of the tag line. I assumed it was a book about the science of the much-underrated sense of smell - and part of it is - but the main theme is that 'how its loss can change your world' part. Paola Totaro lost her sense of smell early in the Covid pandemic, and this would have a big impact on her life, driving forward the urge to find out more about changes that can occur to the sense of smell. 

Loss or modification of the ability to detect odours is more common than we tend to think, but has largely been ignored by the medical profession, in part because we tend to under-rate the importance of the ability to detect odours. Totaro covers both the total loss of detection and also the, arguably more devastating, situation where substances as innocuous as water, along with many foods, can start to smell disgusting - another common impact of Covid.

I'm not a great fan of 'me-centred' science writing, but there is enough on the science here to make it not feel too much like a misery memoir. And there were certainly various parts of it that were genuinely interesting. For example, I have never understood people's enthusiasm for coriander (cilantro) - I find the taste of it highly unpleasant, and it was a relief to discover that this is not at all uncommon. There were quite a few of those 'ooh, that's interesting' moments. Having said that, though, I did find reading the book a bit of a slog - there weren't enough points of engagement, and a lot of the painstaking discovery of what was happening was... well, too slow.

A literary agent I know always says when presented with a non-fiction idea 'Yes, but is it a book or a magazine article?' - it did feel in part that this was a magazine article expanded to book length. The other thing I found really odd - verging on the uncomfortable - is that the book is written in the first person singular, but is co-authored. It took me quite a while to work out that 'I' was Totaro. It might have been better, if such a personal approach was to be taken, if both authors had identified themselves in the text.

If you have lost your sense of smell or had it distorted - something that far more of us have experienced in the past couple of years as a result of Covid - I would strongly recommend this book. But as a general reader I came out of it slightly underwhelmed.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here