Fragrant Reads

What is it about perfume that inspires so many books?? The tantalizing mysticism, the heritage, the grandeur, the feminity, the seductiveness, the power to transform personalities and to create or destroy emotions? The fact that fortunes have been won and lost, that men (and women) have loved and hated, hunted and abandoned for perfume? That this is the one ingredient that's scattered even through religion (as an offering to the Gods) and the healing arts (as medicine) for thousands of years? That its the one element which has the power to evoke a memory, create an impression, fulfill a fantasy and transport you from a dreary office desk in Mumbai to an exotic island in Polynesia? Several story-tellers have charted this territory...here are some of my favourites:

The Scent Trail by Celia Lyttelton
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr
The Perfect Scent: A Year Inside the Perfume Industry by Chandler Burr
Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez
The Perfume Guide by Susan Irvine
Perfume Legends: French Feminine Fragrances by Michael Edwards
A Scented Palace: The Secret History of Marie Antoinette's Perfumer by Elisabeth de Feydeau and Jane Lizop
Perfume: Joy, Scandal, Sin - A Cultural History of Fragrance from 1750 to the Present by Richard Stamelman