Luca Turin's next book, The Secret of Scent: Adventures in Perfume and the Science of Smell, will be published in the UK next year by Faber & Faber. Those of you who have read Chandler Burr's Emperor of Scent, which described Turin's efforts to unlock the mystery of how smell works, are already familiar with the basics of the controversy between shape and vibration theorists (for background, see the links provided in my interview with Luca Turin). Turin's book will focus on the history of this controversy and pay homage to those before him who "got it right", although as he acknowledges, the jury is still out on the matter.

The book is about science, will touch on perfume composition only tangentially, and will mostly be about molecules, their smell, and the decipherment of the smell code. It will not (sorry fans!) have any actual perfume reviews. It is written for the general rather than the technical reader, and he promises that it will not be hard going for those of us who are science-challenged. Keep an eye on Turin's blog, Perfume Notes, as he hopes to publish excerpts there over the coming months.

Update: see a review of Turin's The Secret of Scent.