Jitterbug Perfume tells the parallel story of Priscilla, the genius waitress and aspiring perfumer, and Alobar, the 8th century Bohemia King turned peasant, turned bearer of everlasting life.

We’ve been carrying around this book since last April’s Saugeen canoe trip. Its pages are weather worn, bug-juiced, dog-eared, sweated on, creased and dishevelled like an accordion in a gypsy parade.

Some people take great care to protect their books; we like to beat ours to a pulp (the good ones at least.) Good books are built to take on this kind of abuse; it’s why they’re made of paper and not rock. Imagine if we had to read rock books all day. How hazardous and annoying would that be?

A book that looks like it could have been chewed by a pack of dogs, then run over by someone’s car, slowly and purposefully, like by some nervous teenage girl learning how to parallel park, now that’s a loved book. That’s a book that has been on a serious journey and back.

[To read about our graveyard experience finishing this book, click here]