Published in 2018
346 pages
Tania Sanchez is co-author of Perfumes: the A–Z Guide, published by Viking Penguin in the US and Profile Books in the UK. Her own writing on perfume has been published in Intelligent Life, Psychologies (for which she was awarded the Jasmine Prize), Fashion, Marie Claire, and others. Last seen at large in the English countryside, dreaming of a decent Vietnamese lunch.
Luca Turin is a perfume critic, biophysicist, popular lecturer, and author of several books on science, perfume, and culture. Also the subject of the award-winning BBC documentary “A Code in the Nose” and the book The Emperor of Scent, he has lectured at TED, TEDx, Futurefest, and Google TechTalks, among others. He has been awarded both the Prix Jasmin (France) and the Jasmine Prize (UK) for perfume writing. He is currently professor at the University of Buckingham, UK. Though he has Italian citizenship, he was born in Beirut and has lived in France, Switzerland, Italy, the UK, the US, Germany, and Greece.
What is this book about?
In 2008, Turin and Sanchez up-ended the world of fragrance with their critically acclaimed Perfumes: the A–Z Guide, one of Amazon’s best books of the year, described by John Lanchester in the New Yorker as “ravishingly entertaining,” by India Knight in the Sunday Times (UK) as “one of the best books I have ever read,” by Hilary Mantel as “opinionated, knowledgeable, sharply written and surprisingly comprehensive … a purely enjoyable book,” and by Philip Hensher as “a work of the highest criticism, one which elevates writing about perfume to the best sort of writing about wine or rock music.” Ten years later they bring their inimitably passionate, erudite perspective back to the hugely changed world of fragrance, to sort out which of over 1,200 new individual perfumes deserves celebration (and which condemnation).
The 2018 guide includes all new content, including:
- “Ten Years Later,” looking back on the last decade of fragrance
- “The Shifting Shape of Fragrance 1918–2018,” describing changes over a hundred years of fragrance history
- all new Frequently Asked Questions
- over 1,200 individual perfume reviews: masculine and feminine, mainstream and arcane, from the latest Guerlains to a five-star masterpiece by a small, little-known Malaysian firm
- an expanded glossary
- top ten lists, this time including not just top masculines and feminines but the best introverts and extroverts, the best retro, the best citrus, the best oud, and more
