Oct. 19--SPEAKING OF FRAGRANCE -- I was, in my earlier post -- a fantastically entertaining book arrived in the mail today. I started flipping through it, and immediately was transported from the mind-boggling world of learning a new computer system, to the delight of something that is easy on the mind and mood.

[http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/.a/6a00d83451c3cb69e20120a5f7111e970b-pi] The bland title, PERFUMES: the A-Z Guide (Penguin Paperback, $20, on sale Oct. 27) doesn't even hint at the delights within.

It's written by Luca Turin, a leading scholar in olfactory science, and Tania Sanchez, an avid perfume collector and writer. In addition to being enormously informative, the book is brash, opinionated and wickedly funny. There are reviews, from glowing to ghastly, of more than 1,800 perfumes. Each is star-rated from one to five.

Read it. You'll learn more than you dreamed there was to know about fragrance. And you'll enjoy every line -- I guarantee. (Great for gift-giving, too.) Some snippets from the book:

[http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/.a/6a00d83451c3cb69e20120a64e1516970c-pi] Rush (Gucci). Has anyone ever made a more perfect fragrance for a night out? ......This is large-scale oputdoor art ......

[http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/.a/6a00d83451c3cb69e20120a64df7e8970c-pi]Lovely (Sarah Jessica Parker, top left). This is a truly charming floral, about as edgy as a marshmallow and all the better for it, with a fresh, gracious, melodic chord somewhere between lily-of-the-valley and magnolia, which cascades down like the tune of a music box while you sit there transfixed by the intrinsic goodness of nice girls dressed in white. Makes you want to buy furry toys.

Poison (Dior). This is the fragrance everybody loves to hate, the beast that defined the eighties ...... It is also unquestionably the best dressed-up, syrupy tuberose in history. ...... but please never, ever wear it to dinner.

Almost Bare (Bobbi Brown). Smells like the latex backing on new carpet.

[http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/.a/6a00d83451c3cb69e20120a5f6fa65970b-pi] Prada (Prada). Miuccia Prada is a genuine fashion visionary, but she shows no similar knack for perfume. ......[Her fragrance] gets into hippie head-shop territory, with a heavy overripe floral like the smell in your leather purse when you've had a banana in it since yesterday.

[http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/.a/6a00d83451c3cb69e20120a5f6fc61970b-pi] Spellbound (Estee Lauder). Powerfully cloying and nauseating. Trails for miles. Frightens horses.

Love in White (Creed). A chemical white floral so disastrously vile words nearly desert me. If this were a shampoo offered with your first shower after sleeping rough for two months in Nouakchott, you'd opt to keep the lice.

EEEEUW!!!

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