The Secret of Scent by Luca Turin (19 of 166)

One Sentence Summary: A persuasive argument for biochemist Luca Turin's theories regarding the mysterious scent molecule.

Excerpt:

"The voice of Nombre Noir was that of a child older than its years, at once fresh, husky, modulated and faintly capricious. There was a knowing naivety about it which made me think of Colette's writing style in her Claudine books. It brought to mind a purple ink to write love letters with, and that wonderful French word farouche, which can mean either shy or fierce or a bit of both. I immediately bought a very expensive half-ounce in a little square black bottle." 

I am thoroughly intimidated by anything more than cursory approaches to the sciences. For the most part a decent student in high school, I hung on by the skin of teeth in science classes year after depressing year. It is not that I do not appreciate science; don't get me wrong. I actually love it. I experience the same strange pull to it that I do to all fields with any mystery left to them. It is just that curriculum everywhere manage to squeeze all of the goodness out of a thing and replace it with the knee-knocking fear of senseless equation running. Equations are beautiful things, but not when they have stripped down to their use on standardized testing. You catch my drift. I think that it must be nearly impossible to separate a love of this world from a love of science. High school achieved it. Remarkable.

Something that I do have a decent understanding of is perfume. It may a seem a superfluous sort of interest, a bourgeoisie fascination, but I would argue that belief to come from a root of ignorance. Scent is integral to our relationships, to each other, to ourselves, and to our environment. It is the sense most strongly linked with memory and association. And yet, when it comes to finding the sensory calling card that you will leave most subtly and inexorably on those you meet, we deem the pursuit vanity. Why am I into perfume? Because it is complicated and romantic and different for every person out there, because it is full of beautiful language both technical (fougere, aldehydic, chypre) and descriptive (blousy, biting, sensual, woody), and because the legacy of scent is so strong.

Taking into consideration the above two paragraphs, one begins to understand how I managed to finish a book that, by its very nature, gave me test-taking anxiety. Luca Turin writes on his topic with so much passion and excitement that you cannot help but feel that scent molecules are the most important thing to happen to science since the microscope. Even as I labored through pages of complicated (for me) formulas, it always became worth it for me upon reaching another milestone where the shop talk turned back to perfume. Turin managed to make his book about more than his theory (which is fascinating, by the way)- he managed to make it a scientist's love letter to an arcane and under-appreciated art form. Better than that, he wrote with all of the sass of a self-assured Frenchman. Like a complete bad ass, he shrugs off his nay-sayers by casually reminding that he has used his theory of scent to generate synthetic molecules for Flexitrol for several years now. Excuse me, but:

I only wish I had a better grasp on the technical aspect of this little treatise on scent.

I would like to take a Chemistry 101 class and then return to this text to see what else I can take away from it. But Luca Turin sounds like someone I want to take up over the perfume counter in some back-alley Parisian boutique and talk Coty, Chanel, and everything in between, up, down, and diagonal. 

Shelf Status: Keeping for now. Perfume books are few and far between.

Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin (12 of 159)

One Sentence Summary: The story of Greg Mortenson and his life's work of building schools in the war-torn Middle East as vehicles for peace.

Excerpt: 

'Osama, bahh!' Bashir roared. 'Osama is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard. You have to attack the source of your enemy's strength. In America's case, that's not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever.'

This time last year I was looking toward wrapping up my time volunteering for an organization in Pune, India that was striving to create a safe environment for the nursery-aged children of one of the city's poorest neighborhoods to learn and grow. I will not expound on why, but I came away feeling as if I had failed in many directions. A year out, I am beginning to view my failures and shortcomings as unique opportunities to push myself to excel in the future, but my awareness surrounding all that I could and should have done better still rubs raw. For all of that, I learned an enormous amount, much of which I have only come to realize in the many months since my return, and I continue to process and understand more about my experience as time goes by. Three Cups of Tea spoke to that fire in me, acquired in India and Nepal, where I came to view education as empowerment and as freedom.

While I didn't love the book so much, it wore on me for so many reasons, I would still recommend it. Some non-fiction is simply worth reading, even if the writing isn't so hot. Mortenson's book is important because it reminds the reader to reset a little bit and shake up the propaganda ridden way that we have come to think of the Middle East. I think it could have done a little more in this respect, had it stepped away from the hardcore hero-worship, but ah well. My heart ached reading this as I thought of the carelessness with which promises have been made to that region of the world, on individual, community, and national levels, and how those breaches of contract have compromised everyone involved. The highest compliment that I have for Mortenson, if the facts are as the book puts them forward, is that he kept his word and created bonds of trust on the individual level that he refused to break.  Also, his adaptation to the culture is to be praised. Cultural imperialism is a major danger when attempting to bring aid to any disenfranchised area and he appeared to avoid that most admirably.

This book is a wonderful conversation starter- I would imagine it to be perfect for high school classrooms or community book clubs. That being said, I also tend to think Three Cups of Tea oversimplifies some issues facing the Middle East, particularly those surrounding American involvement. BOOM. Discuss. Either way, I came away reminded of how much can be done with the most basic of human entitlements, education, and also affirmed in the fact that I have a whole lifetime in which to help plant stronger seeds.

Shelf Status: Donating
I Recommend For: Social justice folks, people interested with current events, teachers, students
I Do Not Recommend This For: Glenn Beck

Night by Elie Wiesel (9 of 156)

One Sentence Summary: Elie Wiesel's autobiographical account of his experiences during the Holocaust.

Excerpt: 

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” 

I read horror novels and thrillers regularly and if I have learned anything in the process it is that they cannot measure up against non-fiction. As soon as the human race imagines something more terrible than previously known they put it into practice and so history stretches on as a long legend of repeated ills. Elie Wiesel's story is more than a sickeningly bald-faced first-hand account of the Jewish nation's struggles in the Holocaust, it is a mirror and a warning. We are capable of anything, he reminds, on either end of the spectrum- no living thing can survive like a man and nor can anything parallel man's ability to destroy.

There is little to say aside from the fact that this is a necessary volume, slim and thoroughly haunting and an agony to absorb. I laid in bed and the phantoms gathered in the sea of darkness beyond my mattress and I was so very, very sorry.

There is really nothing more to say.