The Nose: A Profile of Sex, Beauty, and Survival

by Gabrielle Glaser

Charts the significance and impact of the human nose across different cultures throughout history, identifying its place in anthropology, art, health, sex, science, and other fields while considering its role in big business, from plastic surgery to allergies.

Genres: Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published August 27, 2002

About the author

Gabrielle Glaser is the best-selling author of Her Best Kept Secret: Why Women Drink and How They Can Regain Control.

Glaser grew up in Tangent, Oregon, the Grass Seed Capital of the World (pop. 440). She spent her teenage summers driving John Deere combines on her family farm, listening to an unusual mix of local radio programming: the BeeGees, Marvin Gaye, Johnny Cash, and NPR. She was an indifferent member of her local 4-H sewing club, and her nearest neighbors were her grandparents. After high school, she attended Stanford University, where she received a bachelor's and master's degree in history.

She started her journalistic career as a news assistant at The New York Times in Washington, D.C.. She worked as a reporter at the Associated Press in Baltimore, Maryland, and Warsaw, Poland. From Eastern Europe, she also reported for The Economist, The Dallas Morning News, The Village Voice, and National Public Radio.

Since the late 1990s, Glaser has examined social, cultural, and national health trends for The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, and The Oregonian in Portland, where she was a staff writer. She worked as a "County Lines" columnist at The New York Times, and her work has appeared in many publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Glamour, Mademoiselle, and ScientificAmerican.com. She taught feature writing at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and won the Missouri Lifestyle Journalism award for her groundbreaking work exploring international and interracial adoption, "Sending Black Babies North." Before Her Best-Kept Secret, she wrote Strangers to the Tribe: Portraits of Interfaith Marriage, and The Nose: A Profile of Sex, Beauty, and Survival. She appears frequently as a commentator and a guest on local and national television and radio.

Reviews

[Beth Barnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is very interesting and a lot of fun to read. I tackled it over a long weekend. Glaser takes the reader through the mysteries of chronic sinusitis, pheremones, the condition of smelling nothing, and the role of smelling and of smells in human/cultural history. You might not think you care about these things, but this book contains so many interesting topics you wouldn't probably learn of elsewhere that you will be pleasantly surprised. Highly recommended.

[Nicson Lebrun · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s well-researched book. It’s unexpectedly very educational It has interesting facts and myths about the nose. I was pleasantly surprised by some of them .not much has really changed on today’s societal views of the nose! Highly recommended it

[Book Reader 28 · Rating 5 out of 5]

As far as a book about noses goes, this was very interesting and well-written. Learned a lot!

[Janet]

Portland author covers everything you could ever want to know about the nose and sinuses.

[Mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

"To be fair, the nose held many mysteries. Its dark passageways ferried aromas and breath, as well as a strange, viscous liquid that came and went, often inauspiciously" (p. 47).

[Prakash · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting fact about taste: there are actually five and not four types of taste. Sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami.