Alie Ward (host)

You get it bound.

You have the work that you've been working on for several years in a volume.

And there it is.

Yes.

Yeah.

And have you always been a big reader?

I imagine like what was your childhood like?

Were you just curled up in the most adorable reading nook with like a stack of library books?

When did you start to realize that literature would be the focus of your career?

Was there a point where you said, oh, I can continue to study this and teach this?

Or were you like, I just don't want to put books down and I'm going to keep going as far as I can take this?

What a dream.

Was there a particular book that sort of really ignited your curiosity about how smell is portrayed?

Was there one in particular where you

kept noticing it as a theme or?

Heads up, this isn't much of a spoiler.

But in the 1955 book Lolita, this is a classic work of fiction.

It involves a man obsessed with young girls who he calls nymphettes.

And he is enraptured with a 12-year-old named Dolores, nicknamed Dolly or Lolita.

And he becomes her stepfather.