I have never read any of the Object Lessons books, and I was curious to see what PERFUME held for me. Volpert is a good writer, but she jumps around from subject to subject and it is a bit disconcerting. However, she knows her stuff and each chapter is part autobiographical, part science of smell. There are 8 chapters, with titles such as Time, Science, Technology, and Performance. I ended up ignoring the titles, since each chapter contained a multitude of information, not necessarily matching up with the name the chapter was given.
As I constantly mention, each book that spurs me to Google something I’ve read is always satisfying. I looked up vetiver, Giorgio Beverly Hills (which I subsequently bought), Germaine Cellier, Bang by Marc Jacobs, the Monell Center in Philadelphia, and the ship of Theseus. Each search entertained and educated, and I grew more satisfied with each Google.
If you are looking for a book with detailed descriptions on how to create a scent, you may not be entirely happy with this book. But you will learn a bit about creation, top and bottom notes, names of ingredients that go into a scent, and the gestalt of 80’s perfume (I felt so nostalgic as I read and recalled that decade, my favorite).
One of the scientific paragraphs that grabbed my attention was the following, taken from the chapter Time, discussing perfume formulas:

Perhaps a formula has 50 elements and the lab tech not only doles out all 50 with exactitude, but also the variations the master perfumer has requested to contemplate, such as a set of 10 options where one molecule is increased by a quarter of a percent each time and a second set of five options for each of those ten where the ratio of two other molecules is reduced proportionally alongside the quarter-percent increase of the other. And all the results may smell like garbage.

I had no idea of the depth of work required to create a fragrance, much less the tweaking that is sometimes done, such as CK One evolving into the variation of other CK perfumes. CK One was truly the scent of a generation, and the author handles this little tidbit with aplomb.
Overall, I was happy with this little book. As I read it, I absorbed its contents without knowing that I would think of this book again and again. After a few days separation I realized that I enjoyed it more than I originally thought. Once you get into the flow of the author’s quirky prose, the contents flow smoothly until you reach the end and are left wanting more. I do recommend PERFUME as a quick, enjoyable read. Volpert manages to bring literature, philosophy, and science together, culminating in a compact masterpiece.
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Perfume by Megan Volpert is an engaging look at fragrance and smell through the "object" of perfume. Like the other books in this series it is not a textbook but rather a personal look and understanding of something we all know and have some impression of.

By the way, if you see theeimbecilic spewing "woke" as if it describes a book or an entire series, ignore it, simple minds have a limited vocabulary. Just imagine constantly criticizing books for being academic when they are published by a publishing house with the word academic in their name. So we are talking about a poor soul who knows little but likes to attack books for taking a personal approach. Well, leave him be, he isn't very bright.

Anyway, to the book. Like most of the books in the series you learn quite a bit about perfume and fragrance, the science, the marketing, and the social/cultural meanings. But rather than be a dry textbook approach it is told through a personal lens. If humans interfering with your science bothers you, you might find vacuous words to make the book sound less appealing. If, on the other hand, science with humanity front and center sounds good to you, you will enjoy this volume.

Yes, it is a little memoirish. It is that quality which allows a reader to relate parts of the book to their own life. There will likely be several such moments and some may even be in opposition to Volpert's ideas, which is fine. I, for instance, don't like to have a fragrance precede a person into a room or linger for a long time after. I don't feel that they have that right to do that to me, especially since they don't know what kind of reaction, physical or emotional, that fragrance may have on me. Volpert feels she has every right to force her fragrance on people who may simply be within a couple dozen feet and regardless of the affect it may have on them. We differ on that point and I remembered a friend of mine who had respiratory distress because of someone heavily perfumed just walking into the room, so I sympathize with that side of the equation rather than the other.

There were other moments in the book that made me remember less negative events or habits. That is the strength of this series, objects are examined, the science or social impacts are looked at, and it is all done through a very personal lens. I like reading about how and why objects I may pay little attention to play a larger role in someone else's life.

Highly recommended for those who enjoy personal looks at everyday objects and also those readers who simply enjoy memoirish books that aren't entire life stories. Those who use "woke" and "academic" as negative terms to describe a book may find less here to like, but there are plenty of picture books being published for them.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )