The Doc Savage novels Spook Hole and Colors for Murder both use ambergris, an essential ingredient in perfume making at the time, as a McGuffin. That got me interested enough to read Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris by Christopher Kemp.
Contrary to some accounts, ambergris isn’t sperm whale puke but some sort of whale excrement, forming around the indigestible beaks of squid (something sperm whale love to eat) and either popping out the back end or floating free when the whale dies and the carcass decays (there’s a lot still unknown about the process). After year of drifting on the sea, it forms a hard substance that can enhance the smell and duration of perfume. Once essential to all perfumiers it’s used much less now due to concern over cetacean rights, though some of the dealers Kemp talks to claim it’s as in-demand now as ever.
The ambergris stuff is fascinating but Kemp spends more time talking about his personal odyssey hunting for ambergris on various beaches and Kemp is not fascinating. It was still worth reading but if you can’t put up with the personal stuff (or you like writers putting themselves in the story more than I do), skip it.
TOM PAINE’S IRON BRIDGE: Building a United States by Edward D. Gray argues that Paine, author of the anti-monarchy, pro-independence Common Sense was less the wild-eyed radical ready to tear down established institutions and equally concerned with building the new country up. One of the challenges for creating a country in North America was that the English colonial footprint was huge and split up by countless rivers. Nor did were bridge designs in the late 18th century able to withstand flooding or ice without being bulky enough to block river traffic.
Paine’s solution was to build bridges with large arches out of iron. The title refers to a sample bridge he made in England, showing he’d gotten around the technical challenges of iron bridges; however in a colonial era where forested land was everywhere, laminated wood proved a more popular choice in Paine’s lifetime. The book makes for an interesting look at American infrastructure and bridge-building methods in Paine’s day.
BURN IT DOWN: Power, Complicity and a Call for Change in Hollywood by Maureen Ryan is a blistering look at toxic workplaces (including Lost and Saturday Night Live), psycho bosses, sexual harassers, the many myths that excuse them — comedy should offend people! Being a jerk is the director’s creative process! — bosses who turn a blind eye as long as the money keeps coming in and rapists who get redemption without earning it. A depressingly familiar picture (a lot of the details were new to me) and the chapter on how to change things was weak — but in fairness, that’s a very big and difficult question. Definitely worth reading.
#SFWApro. Cover by Emery Clarke, all rights to image remain with current holder.
