Fragrant reads

Writing about perfume, and smells in general, is one of the greatest challenges for a journalist/author:  how to evoke scents, with words…?  But over the years, quite a few have done so very, very successfully.  And if you want to build a ‘perfume bookshelf’, to deepen your knowledge of perfumery, this is where we recommend you start.  (We’ve given each title stars out of five, as a guide to which we think are the most important, and the all-round best reads.  Nothing less than a three features here, though – so we think any of them are a worthwhile read.)

As you become ever-more-obsessed (and we know how that feels), you may want to add to your collection – and of course, we’ll add to this section whenever new releases catch our eye…

NB  Looking for out-of-print perfume titles in secondhand bookstores can be like searching for a needle in a haystack.  If you’re in a hurry, we generally recommend www.abebooks.com, which links thousands of secondhand bookstores around the world, while www.amazon.com can be a source for remaindered books…

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