This book is a tribute to the free sense of smell in all its beauty and disgust.
Smell is linked to the dark, the erotic, the primitive—the opposite of modernity. When the senses fall out of balance, we risk hallucinations and begin to invent our lives. In a time when improvisation and the revelation of false information may be more important than ever, this becomes especially unsettling.
The book starts by exploring the significance of smell and its diversity, before taking us on an olfactory historical journey—from ancient cities and medieval plagues to the industrial revolution and today. Along the way, we discover twenty smells that continue to shape human life, from blood and flower meadows to money, farts, and garlic.
Bjørn Berge offers us yet another treasure trove of insight and reflection. The text sharpens your senses and makes you appreciate the endless variety the world has to offer, which powerful forces are recklessly striving to flatten, homogenize, and standardize.
Dagbladet
Although odours are everywhere and we perceive them constantly, we only have a very limited vocabulary to describe them. For this reason alone, it is absolutely necessary to bring a book about the sense of smell onto the market.
Martin Lindh, Publisher Haupt Verlag
Bjorn Berge offers a cornucopia of odours – the good, the bad and the ugly. Yet this book is bigger than a feast for the nose: Berge reflects on smell, with grace and wit, encouraging us to think about it deeply. Ultimately, Smell is about feelings, memories, and far more than simply a fading sense.
Vivian Constantinopoulos, Publisher at Reaction Books
We have already published two books written by Bjørn Berge. We love nonfiction that has a special uniqueness to it. Berge’s books are a guarantee for mind-blowing facts, presented with expertise in a refined writing style.
Publisher at Cser Kiadó, Hungary
This invention is so good that one can turn yellow with envy: writing a book about a country that no longer exists. … Each country is devoted to just four pages, and on these are unrolled shocking world history, lyrical descriptions and subtle details … an exceptionally beautiful book.
Author Erika Fatland, for Aftenposten, on Nowherelands
Exuberantly cheerful and wise, packed with surprising facts.
Dagbladet, on Nowherelands
