A beautiful book about beautiful things, with a fascinating narrative told by an author who loves her subject.
The world of perfumes is a universe all its own, and Aftel’s book is a colorful, authoritative guide.
There are some authors who know everything there is to know about their field. Aftel, author of Fragrant and Essence and Alchemy, is one of them, and the result is this sumptuous book. She is a creator of bespoke perfumes and has an impressive client list. In 2017, she opened a small museum at her home in Berkeley, California, called the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents, to educate people about the history and culture of perfumes. Her latest book is another step in this project, cataloguing her collection of essences and oils, as well as prints, photographs, and maps. She disdains the trend toward artificial scents, arguing that only natural perfumes can provide true aromatic beauty. Her exploration of the origin of each ingredient features an exquisite drawing, with categories of flowers, woods, leaves and grasses, and resins, and an account of the painstaking distilling processes. Aftel explains how a perfume is created through the careful balancing of three “chords” that might require dozens of components, measured at the molecular level. Her museum also houses collections of antique perfume bottles and evocative recipe books. “It’s not that the world of scent contains these objects so much as they contain the world,” writes the author. “This world kindles a sense of shared humanity that transcends the boundaries of culture and travels down through the eras. It shakes us out of our usual way of responding to the modern world, as a lifeless place; the universe of aromatics has the power to vivify our very being.” This is an inspiring view, founded in nature and enhanced by artistry. This book could be read straight through or dipped into randomly. Many readers will want to sample the fragrances that Aftel describes.
A beautiful book about beautiful things, with a fascinating narrative told by an author who loves her subject.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780789214713
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Abbeville Press
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and...
A dense, absorbing investigation into the medical community's exploitation of a dying woman and her family's struggle to salvage truth and dignity decades later.
In a well-paced, vibrant narrative, Popular Science contributor and Culture Dish blogger Skloot (Creative Writing/Univ. of Memphis) demonstrates that for every human cell put under a microscope, a complex life story is inexorably attached, to which doctors, researchers and laboratories have often been woefully insensitive and unaccountable. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of five, was diagnosed with what proved to be a fatal form of cervical cancer. At Johns Hopkins, the doctors harvested cells from her cervix without her permission and distributed them to labs around the globe, where they were multiplied and used for a diverse array of treatments. Known as HeLa cells, they became one of the world's most ubiquitous sources for medical research of everything from hormones, steroids and vitamins to gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, even the polio vaccine—all without the knowledge, must less consent, of the Lacks family. Skloot spent a decade interviewing every relative of Lacks she could find, excavating difficult memories and long-simmering outrage that had lay dormant since their loved one's sorrowful demise. Equal parts intimate biography and brutal clinical reportage, Skloot's graceful narrative adeptly navigates the wrenching Lack family recollections and the sobering, overarching realities of poverty and pre–civil-rights racism. The author's style is matched by a methodical scientific rigor and manifest expertise in the field.
Skloot's meticulous, riveting account strikes a humanistic balance between sociological history, venerable portraiture and Petri dish politics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-4000-5217-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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