From World to World – In Search of Perfumes by Dominique Roques

This highly personal combination of memoir, travel experiences, history, and a gentle but insistent treatise on politics and environmental sustainability has been impeccably translated from the original French. 

The author is a businessman whose work caused him to spend decades traversing both familiar and remote locations around the world sourcing the essential oils produced from trees and plants that create the world's most treasured and sophisticated fragrances. His travels took him to the places and resources most recognizable, such as the roses of Bulgaria, and lavender of Provence, to the most mysterious, such as the Amazon jungles of Venezuela for tonka beans, Laos for benzoin, and Madagascar for vanilla. Some of the places he visited could be physically or politically dangerous: Haiti for vetiver, Somaliland for frankincense. 

It is an eye-opening and even mind-bending account that combines the details of the materials and production of these ingredients with the mystical and legendary allure of locations that are far from top of mind for most Westerners, but that doesn't stint on relating the dangers of exploitation of raw materials and the greed of those who profit from them – he does not hesitate to comment on the contrast of the poverty of the workers in some of these places versus the governments and others who manipulate their natural resources as well as their people.

Despite that grounding in the disturbing realities of past colonialism and current profiteering in Africa, Asia, Caribbean and South America, the romantic allure, mysticism, and myth surrounding so many of the substances and extracts that he seeks, and the famous perfumes that are the result combine in the wonderful stories that the author tells. As he says in the prologue, "Perfumes are at once familiar to us, yet mysterious.", then goes on to mention the <i>Diorissimo</i> that his mother wore, and describes how scents immediately bring up some of our most familiar and meaningful memories. The stories of his wanders around the world, and his encounters with the producers of the raw materials create both fascinating and intoxicating reading. Highly recommend.

 

Our National Nightmare – The Hidden History of Guns and the Second Amendment by Thom Hartmann

I became familiar with Thom Hartmann through his Substack, The Hartmann Report, which reports on current affairs and politics. Sometimes it is so unsettling I can only read it in small doses.

Since this book was published in 2019, gun deaths have gotten even further out of control. It seems as though there is a new incident of mass murder every week, sometimes even more often than that. It is clear that certain violent-leaning and suggestible individuals were empowered by the election and administration of Donald Trump, perhaps even more so after the January 6th insurrection, which fortunately failed. Even so, a future second term for him is a chilling prospect. That being said, in just four years, gun violence is far, far worse than it was at the time of publication and a revised edition would surely reflect that.

However, this little book is an important history and guide to the circumstances that have brought the United States to develop its dangerous relationship with firearms. It reinforced much of what I already knew on the topic, and illuminated some of the finer points of historical detail. I would recommend it for anyone interested in learning more about what brought this country to this point, and what can be done to enable much-needed change.

Trés Bien – A Bakery in Paris by Aimie K. Runyan

A very enjoyable, and very quick, read set in Paris, alternating between the period of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 (and the rebellion of the working class Commune against the royalists), and 1946, immediately following the end of World War II.

The story traces two women of different generations of the same family who establish and operate a neighborhood bakery in Montmartre, and follows their personal ambitions and challenges, and their romantic and family attachments. The descriptions of the city, the social milieu, the clothing, and, of course, the food are vivid and appealing. There are even some recipes for those inclined to make their own French bread and pastry.

There are many books set in the Paris of the 1920s, or during World War II, but these time frames add a unique perspective, with the benefit of unexpected historical references to add to the reader's knowledge of the French capital.

A World of Darkness – Ravage & Son by Jerome Charyn

Set in the Jewish Lower East Side of Manhattan not long after the turn of the twentieth century, Abraham Cahan, the legendary editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, rescues Ben Ravage, a boy living at a trade school and home for orphaned boys and sends him to Harvard, where he earns a law degree. Ben, rather than joining a law firm, returns to the neighborhood and becomes a detective for the Kehilla, a Robin Hood sort of gang fighting corruption and violent crime.

Ben is the illegitimate son of Lionel Ravage, a cruel, swindling landlord and businessman who lives uptown among the other wealthy German Jews, including Jacob Schiff (who was in real life a principal at the banking house of Kuhn, Loeb and a prominent figure in charitable enterprises) who in this story operates various businesses, not all above board. The older Ravage lives a dark life making his downtown rounds, but he falls in love with and seduces the beautiful but impoverished Manya, who gives birth to Ben.

The story moves back and forth between the various principals and threads: Cahan, who is fighting F.W. Woolworth's plan to raze buildings on Grand Street in order to build another five and ten store, which he believes will change the character of the neighborhood and lead to gentrification that will drive out the poor and destroy a traditional mode of commerce; the conflicts between the two Ravages, Schiff's enterprises; and, Clara Karp, a fictional Yiddish theatre actress of tremendous influence who appears as a female Hamlet, and alongside the real-life king of Yiddish theater, Jacob Adler, known for his King Lear.

This is a complex and picaresque tale, violent to the point of gruesome, including some very graphic details I could certainly have done without, though they are important to understanding the characters. This Lower East Side is dark, and far beyond any tale of poverty, squalid living and working conditions, the press of Tammany Hall corruption, and the spread of vice, drugs, and violence against the innocent and often illiterate inhabitants of the area. Despite this darkness, this is still a fascinating portrait of a way of life that is now long gone, and barely remembered except in the memories of the aging grandchildren of the inhabitants of that era.

Umm, So Delicious – A Winter in New York by Josie Silver

I really enjoyed this book – it was a good escape from the very serious problems facing us in the world today, and since I liked it so much, I even entered the giveaway. Should I win, it would make a great gift for a good friend.

It was a delightful mix of romance, friendship, food, and family stresses and conflicts, and with some "Moonstruck" references thrown in, how could you really go wrong? The New York and Brooklyn settings were totally familiar to me as a long-time New Yorker, and the abundance of familiar details of those made me smile.

Thirty-something heroine Iris is an English transplant to the city, who has fled an abusive relationship back in London, and is also still coming to terms with the death from cancer of her beloved mother, a former rock singer, who raised her as a single parent. Gio, her hero counterpart, is a widower with a teenaged daughter, and is a part of a close Italian American family, the Belottis. His father, also a musician, left for the road, leaving the young Gio in the care of his brother and sister-in-law. He grew up with their daughters, as the "son" of the family. The Belottis run a successful gelateria in Little Italy, which has been in the family for generations, and live in a spacious brownstone in Brooklyn. Their claim to fame is their signature vanilla gelato, the secret recipe for which is passed down exclusively through the family (or so they think).

Iris is a trained chef, but for the time being, she is working at a trendy noodle restaurant on the equally trendy Lower East Side. Her boss and friend, Bobby, lives with his husband in an apartment over the restaurant, and Iris lives on the top floor. They share a quirky cat, Smirnoff.

Iris and Gio meet but get off on the wrong foot when they both reach for the last copy of a book in a local store.

When Iris and Bobby stroll through Little Italy during the Feast of San Gennaro (not specifically named in the book, but we New Yorkers know), they come across a shut gelato shop. Iris instantly recognizes that this is the shop whose owner gave her mother the secret recipe on a napkin. All her life, Iris's mother prepared the gelato for the two of them, and Iris has zealously guarded the recipe, and what remains of the napkin...

How the story unfolds is the charm of this book, so I will leave it there. Read and enjoy, and decide who you'd like to play Iris and Gio in the movie. Emily Blunt is my choice for Iris, and for Gio, perhaps Oscar Isaac, but I'm open to suggestions!