PSA: the splitmeet will start next Saturday, on the 22nd.
Meanwhile, please recommend a great book to add to our fall reading lists, and tell us what fragrance we should wear while reading it.
Or, as always, just talk about something else.
I read an awful lot this quarter, partly because I was ill for a good chunk of it…
Does reading leave a residue? Whenever I’ve accumulated a stash of glossy magazines, I like to make strips from the perfume samples embedded in their pages. These I will turn into bookmarks, which will turn me into a voracious consumer of words. That, at least, is the promise contained in voluptuous notes of sunny daffodil and jasmine, or velvety sandalwood and iris. Also, violet, which, as it turns out, is a kind of aphrodisiac: when you get a whiff, volatile molecules momentarily stun your nose and leave you craving more violets — and, in my case, words.
— Read more in An ode to perfume strips: Makeshift bookmarks and olfactory association at The Smart Set.
Welcome to our annual summer reading poll! (And if you want more recommendations, see fall, winter and spring.
Author birthdays this weekend: Ann Radcliffe, Barbara Cartland, Oliver Sacks, June Jordan and Dean Koontz on Saturday; Marcel Proust, Jean Kerr and Alice Munro on Sunday.
The poll: please recommend a great book to add to our summer reading lists, and tell us what fragrance we should wear while reading it.
My recent reading…
PSA: the swapmeet is open through Tuesday! Meanwhile, it’s almost May so it must be time for the spring reading poll (or, if you’re reading this on Sunday, rabbit, rabbit, rabbit and welcome to May).
Please recommend a great book to add to our reading lists, and tell us what fragrance we should wear while reading it. Or, as always, just talk about something else.
What I’ve read since our winter reading poll…
Welcome to our annual winter reading poll! Tell us about a great book to curl up with on a frosty winter night, and what fragrance we should wear while reading it. (Or, do what I do and record here everything you have read since the last reading poll. And if you want more recommendations, scrolling through the literature tag will bring up all the older reading polls.)
My recent reading…