Perfume and Books? Why not.

First, some winners I’m behind on announcing.

From last week’s favorite combination post , winners of the Le Labo Benjoin, Vanille, CB Gathering Apples/Burning Leaves and Guerlain Double Vanille and Le Labo Patchouli samples –  Claudia D, Kandice and Nitasha.

From the post on Rocket Ship perfumes – melissa! (with the exclamation mark). You are going to get a variety pack of Frederic Malles since that’s what you hadn’t smelled yet.

All of you, to claim your prize, just click on the Drop us  a Note at the top or e-mail patty at perfumepossedawtcom, remind me what you’ve won, and get me your address. I’ll e-mail you back to let you know I got your e-mail (this is important, someone got stuck in my spam filter that was a winner a week ago!) and then ship you out your prize!

Not going to review a perfume or talk about perfume this week exactly or at all.  I know you perfume nuts are often book readers, so I  wanted to talk about a couple of books I’ve read recently that I’ve loved for very different reasons. Then you all can share what you have read lately that you love, so we all get some new books to try.

I’ve had two – Red Rising by Pierce Brown and The Martian by Andy Weir.  I go for long periods of time and can’t find a book that captures my interest, but these two just blew me away back to back.  Both are set on Mars, but very different settings, times, characters.

Red Rising is far in the future, when space is conquered and devolved into a caste system of colors of people.  Reds are the lowest, they work the mines of Mars and believe they are preparing Mars for terraforming.  The book starts out with a brutal memory from childhood of our protagonist, Darrow, helping to hang his father by pulling on his feet because of the gravity problem.  It clicks quickly through a sketch of what they know as Reds of the world, then it catalysts with another incident.  The story is off on a rollicking search for revenge by Darrow. I loved it, I think it’s already been optioned for a movie – and it should be – and is the first book in a trilogy.

The Martian is something else entirely.   Watney is stranded on Mars as his crewmates believe him dead and have to abort the mission during a vicious windstorm.  Watney is a botanist and a mechanical engineer. Lucky for him, he’s going to need all those skills to survive until the next mission comes back in four years.  This book is dense with chemistry and engineering, things that truly make me ready for a long nap, but Weir is a genius is pushing it along at a fast clip, only bogging down in detail enough to writer something incredibly clever and laugh out loud funny, and you keep going, relishing the Mcgyvering of Mars and his Habitation unit and Rovers Watney has to do to survive.  I know how great a book is when I’m up late reading it and busting up laughing out loud in a room by myself at 2 a.m.  It is hilarious in parts, touching, and smart.  Not sentimental or cloying, with Watney pondering his navel and the meaning of life. Mostly he’s pondering why his crewmates took such big collections of Disco music and ’70s sitcoms to Mars.

Loved both books, and now I’m off to read Grasshopper Jungle and Pillar to the Sky.  So what have you guys read lately?  None of these books have anything to do with perfume, but I do wind up wondering what perfume I’d like to have on Mars with me if I were stuck there by myself for several years.  I’m almost thinking nothing. the scent could be forever ruined for me.  I did plan on writing about perfume this week, but I’m waiting on somethings special.  And I’ll give two sets of samples for the somethings special due in this week or next to commenters draw at random on this post.  One I can’t talk about yet until it’s officially released, and the other three I just don’t have yet. Probably tomorrow.

Favorite new book?  I’m going to go back and pick up Galveston by Nic Pizzolatto – the guy who wrote True Detective for HBO.  His writing intrigues me, and I think March read that book and loved it.