Preview
  • Revelations in Air

  • A Guidebook to Smell
  • By: Jude Stewart
  • Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
  • Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (6 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Revelations in Air

By: Jude Stewart
Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $15.75

Buy for $15.75

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

An extraordinary, strange, and startlingly beautiful exploration of smell, the least understood of our five senses.

"The nose on your face is the Buckingham Palace Guard of your body, the matre d' of all taste, as well as the seducer of your imagination, and memory - and Jude Stewart has charmed them all into a wicked, poetic and illuminating tour of their mysterious domains." (Jack Hitt, author of Bunch of Amateurs)

Overlapping with taste yet larger in scope, smell is the sense that comes closest to pure perception. Smell can collapse space and time, unlocking memories and transporting us to worlds both new and familiar. Yet as clearly as each of us can recognize different smells - the bright tang of citrus, freshly sharpened pencils, parched earth after rain - few of us understand how and why we smell.

In Revelations in Air, Jude Stewart takes us on a fascinating journey into the weird and wonderful world of smell. Beginning with lessons on the incredible biology and history of how our noses work, Stewart teaches us how to use our noses like experts. Once we're properly equipped and ready to sniff, Stewart explores a range of smells - from lavender, cut grass, and hot chocolate to cannabis and old books - using smell as a lens into art, history, science, and more. With engaging exercises for listeners to refine their own skills, Revelations in Air goes beyond science or history or chemistry - it's a doorway into the surprising, pleasurable, and unfamiliar landscape of smell.

©2021 Jude Stewart (P)2021 Penguin Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Critic reviews

"In Jude Stewart's witty, surprising, and jubilant romp through the most undervalued of the senses, you will encounter some of most rapturous descriptions of scent ever put on paper. But even more than that, Revelations in Air is an expansive and large-hearted consideration of friendship, memory, beauty, and the art of appreciation." (Adrienne Miller, author of In the Land of Men)

"Revelations in Air manages to feel both breezy and substantial, exciting and informative — like an expertly guided tour of scents." (Jessie Gaynor, Lit Hub Senior Editor)

"Journalist Stewart (Patternalia) takes olfaction seriously in this impassioned exploration of smell.... What sets Stewart’s tour apart is her intense descriptions — jasmine has 'an extraordinary sense of liftoff” that “rolls over you like a tidal wave,' and the smell of truffles is “heterodox, suggesting its own universe...packed with vibrant energy." (Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Revelations in Air

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    2
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good book

It’s a good book there’s some really interesting facts and it dives into describing smells in a really interesting way. I gave it four stars instead of five because It was good, 5 for me is great and it was good but I don’t see myself recommending it or not recommending it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Reveling in Revelations

A brilliant book, impeccably narrated, a fun and fascinating journey beyond the limits of language. Thank you!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

I was expecting a deep research

It can be a good introductory book to this new realm where companies want to capitalize with smells and odors but it felt short , nice try but it just looks like copy paste facts from Wikipedia.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful