One of my favourite novels! The language is so sensual and evocative, although that is hardly surprising given that this is a book all about scent. It draws you in. You know how sometimes, if you read a really good book about food you begin to daydream about running away to be a pastry chef, or a chocolatier or whatever? The first time I read this book - and my own personal copy is very worn - I remember daydreaming about running away to learn how to make perfume. But my dad had a lavender farm at the time, and I'd work there over the summers helping to distil the oil, and honestly it made me loathe the smell of lavender so that pleasant daydream died under withering practicality.

But still. The hero of this story - and I use the word loosely - is a nasty little cockroach with no redeeming features. It's almost refreshing that he's so repulsive. And he does get an ending that deserves him, though really Grenouille is a vehicle for sensory gluttony and not a lot else. I don't care, I am a glutton as well. And if Perfume does anything really, really well, it is allowing me to be gluttonous.