Book Club Fantasy Fiction Humor Literature Magical Realism Novels

Jitterbug Perfume

Name: Jitterbug Perfume
Rating: 4.23 (80553 reviews)
Author: Tom Robbins

Tom Robbins December 1, 1984

4.23 80.6k Ratings

Ongoing Status

14 Views

Start Reading

Synopsis

Jitterbug Perfume is an epic, which is to say, it begins in the forests of ancient Bohemia and doesn’t conclude until nine o’clock tonight [Paris time]. It is a saga, as well. A saga must have a hero, and the hero of this one is a janitor with a missing bottle. The bottle is blue, very, very old, and embossed with the image of a goat-horned god. If the liquid in the bottle is actually is the secret essence of the universe, as some folks seem to think, it had better be discovered soon because it is leaking and there is only a drop or two left.

Books similar to Jitterbug Perfume

The People of Paper

★ 4.07

Salvador Plascencia

Amidst disillusioned saints hiding in wrestling rings, mothers burnt by glowing halos, and a Baby Nostradamus who sees only blackness, a gang of flower pickers heads off to war, led by a lonely man who cannot help but wet his bed in sadness. Part memoir, part lies, this is a book about the wounds inflicted by first love and sharp objects.

Skinny Legs and All

★ 4.07

Tom Robbins

An Arab and a Jew open a restaurant together across the street from the United Nations... It sounds like the beginning of an ethnic joke, but it's the axis around which spins this gutsy, fun-loving and alarmingly provocative novel, widely acclaimed as among Robbins's very best. As a dessert spoon mystifies, a waitress takes

Still Life with Woodpecker

★ 4.04

Tom Robbins

Still Life with Woodpecker is a sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes. It reveals the purpose of the moon, explains the difference between criminals andoutlaws, examines the conflict between social activism and romantic individualism, and paints a portrait of contemporary society that includes powerful Arabs, exiled royalty, and pregnant cheerleaders. It also deals withthe problem of redheads. "From the Trade Paperback edition."

Villa Incognito

★ 3.69

Tom Robbins

Imagine there are American MIAs who chose to remain missing after the Vietnam War. Imagine a family in which four generations of strong, alluring women share a mysterious connection to an outlandish figure from Japanese folklore. Imagine them part of a novel that only Tom Robbins could create? A magically crafted work as timeless as myth yet as topical as the latest international threat. But no matter how hard you try, you'll never imagine what you'll find inside the Villa Incognito: a tilt-a-whirl of identity, masquerade, and disguise that dares to pull off "the false mustache of the world" and reveal the even greater mystery underneath. For neither the mists of Laos nor the Bangkok smog, neither the overcast of Seattle nor the fog of San Francisco, neither the murk of the intelligence community nor the mummery of the circus can obscure the pure linguistic phosphor that illuminates every page of one of America's most consistently surprising and inventive writers.

Death with Interruptions

★ 4

José Saramago

Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago's brilliant new novel poses the question what happens when the grim reaper decides there will be no more death?

On the first day of the new year, no one dies. This, of course, causes consternation among politicians, religious leaders, morticians, and doctors. Among the general public, on the other hand, there is initially mass celebration. Flags are hung out on balconies; people dance in the streets. They have achieved the great goal of humanity: eternal life. Then reality hits home—families are left to care for the permanently dying; life-insurance policies become meaningless; and funeral parlors are reduced to arranging burials for pet dogs, cats, hamsters, and parrots.

Death sits in her chilly apartment, where she lives alone with scythe and filing cabinets and contemplates her experiment: What if no one ever died again? What if she, death with a small "d," became human and were to fall in love?

The Sirens of Titan

★ 4.15

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The Sirens of Titan is an outrageous romp through space, time, and morality. The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course there's a catch to the invitation—and a prophetic vision about the purpose of human life that only Vonnegut has the courage to tell.

A Fraction of the Whole

★ 4.14

Steve Toltz

An irreverent comic adventure, spanning three continents, about a father and son against each other and against the world.

For most of his life, Jasper Dean couldn’t decide whether to pity, hate, love, or murder his certifiably paranoid father, Martin, a man who overanalyzed anything and everything and imparted his self-garnered wisdom to his only son. But now that Martin is dead, Jasper can fully reflect on the crackpot who raised him in intellectual captivity, and what he realizes is that, for all its lunacy, theirs was a grand adventure.

As he recollects the events that led to his father’s demise, Jasper recounts a boyhood of outrageous schemes and shocking discoveries—about his infamous outlaw uncle, Terry, his mysteriously absent European mother, and Martin’s constant losing battle to make a lasting mark on the world he so disdains. It’s a story that takes them from the Australian bush to the cafés of bohemian Paris, from the Thai jungle to strip clubs, asylums, labyrinths, and criminal lairs, and from the highs of first love to the lows of failed ambition. The result is a wild rollercoaster ride from obscurity to infamy, and the moving, memorable story of a father and son whose spiritual symmetry transcends all their many shortcomings.

A Fraction of the Whole is an uproarious indictment of the modern world and its mores, and the epic debut of the blisteringly funny and talented Steve Toltz.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

★ 3.69

Dave Eggers

A book that redefines both family and narrative for the twenty-first century. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read for decades to come.

Jitterbug Perfume

Books similar to Jitterbug Perfume

The People of Paper

Skinny Legs and All

Still Life with Woodpecker

Villa Incognito

Death with Interruptions

The Sirens of Titan

A Fraction of the Whole

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Welcome Back!