{"title":"Theresa Levitt","description":"\u003cp\u003eDelve into Theresa Levitt's captivating historical fiction, where strong female characters navigate the complexities of love, loss, and societal expectations. Perfect for fans of Sarah Waters and Tracy Chevalier.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"short-bright-flash-book-theresa-levitt-9780393350890","title":"A Short Bright Flash","description":"How a scientific outsider came up with a revolutionary theory of light and saved untold numbers of lives.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49526085419281,"sku":"GOR006635680","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50317132169489,"sku":"CIN0393350894G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51002096484625,"sku":"NIN9780393350890","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0393350894.jpg?v=1751039116"},{"product_id":"elixir-book-theresa-levitt-9781399803243","title":"Elixir","description":"A FINANCIAL TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR A STRONG WORDS TOP 50 BOOKS OF THE YEAR  'Dizzying and fragrant . . . truly a captivating achievement!' Aimee Nezhukumatathil  'If you read this book you will be changed . . .  this book feels like an actual elixir' Kiese Laymon  'A fascinating tale of discovery, wonder, and revolution' Matthew Stanley  Two friends in a Parisian perfume shop make a discovery that will transform our   understanding of the world and the origins of life on Earth forever.  Set amidst the unforgettable sights and smells of 18th and   19th Century Paris, Elixir tells the story of   Edouard Laugier and Auguste Laurent, the son of a perfumer and a fellow   aspiring chemist, who met on the Left Bank while pursuing their passion for   science.   Spurned by the scientific establishment, the pair ended up working out   of Edouard's family perfume shop, Laugier père et fils. By   day they prepared the revitalizing elixirs and rejuvenating eaux it was   famous for, but by night using the ingredients of the perfumery and the   principles of alchemy, they pursued the secret of life itself.  Elixir reads like a novel, brimming with eccentric characters,   experimental daring, and the romance of the Bohemian salon. It is the story   of a long-standing scientific puzzle and the struggle to gain acceptance for   a new way of thinking about the building blocks of living matter long after   those who discovered it were both dead. Yet this is also a story of hope   and determination. For while the scientific establishment ridiculed their   work at the time, teenage lab assistant Louis Pasteur took it seriously and   over the course of an exceptional career, was able to show that their work   pointed to a deep, inexplicable asymmetry in the molecular arrangement of   living things - an unexplained asymmetry which remains one of science's great   mysteries.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49527708942609,"sku":"GOR013587160","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49728067797265,"sku":"GOR013113106","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49744543252753,"sku":"NGR9781399803243","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1399803247.jpg?v=1751083169"},{"product_id":"elixir-book-theresa-levitt-9781399803250","title":"Elixir","description":"A FINANCIAL TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR A STRONG WORDS TOP 50 BOOKS OF THE YEAR  'Dizzying and fragrant . . . truly a captivating achievement!' Aimee Nezhukumatathil  'If you read this book you will be changed . . .  this book feels like an actual elixir' Kiese Laymon  'A fascinating tale of discovery, wonder, and revolution' Matthew Stanley  Two friends in a Parisian perfume shop make a discovery that will transform our   understanding of the world and the origins of life on Earth forever.  Set amidst the unforgettable sights and smells of 18th and   19th Century Paris, Elixir tells the story of   Edouard Laugier and Auguste Laurent, the son of a perfumer and a fellow   aspiring chemist, who met on the Left Bank while pursuing their passion for   science.   Spurned by the scientific establishment, the pair ended up working out   of Edouard's family perfume shop, Laugier père et fils. By   day they prepared the revitalizing elixirs and rejuvenating eaux it was   famous for, but by night using the ingredients of the perfumery and the   principles of alchemy, they pursued the secret of life itself.  Elixir reads like a novel, brimming with eccentric characters,   experimental daring, and the romance of the Bohemian salon. It is the story   of a long-standing scientific puzzle and the struggle to gain acceptance for   a new way of thinking about the building blocks of living matter long after   those who discovered it were both dead. Yet this is also a story of hope   and determination. For while the scientific establishment ridiculed their   work at the time, teenage lab assistant Louis Pasteur took it seriously and   over the course of an exceptional career, was able to show that their work   pointed to a deep, inexplicable asymmetry in the molecular arrangement of   living things - an unexplained asymmetry which remains one of science's great   mysteries.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49725959078161,"sku":"GOR013707552","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49753792839953,"sku":"NGR9781399803250","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53348225024273,"sku":"GOR014865352","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1399803255.jpg?v=1751369681"},{"product_id":"short-bright-flash-book-theresa-levitt-9780393068795","title":"A Short Bright Flash","description":"How a scientific outsider came up with a revolutionary theory of light and saved untold numbers of lives.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49855565299985,"sku":"CIN039306879XG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50414271168785,"sku":"GOR008359959","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51134420549905,"sku":"CIN039306879XVG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/039306879X.jpg?v=1751102803"},{"product_id":"elixir-book-theresa-levitt-9780674250895","title":"Elixir","description":"A Financial Times and Scientific American Best Book of the Year.  A story of alchemy in Bohemian Paris, where two scientific outcasts discovered a fundamental distinction between natural and synthetic chemicals that inaugurated an enduring scientific mystery.  For centuries, scientists believed that living matter possessed a special quality—a spirit or essence—that differentiated it from nonliving matter. But by the nineteenth century, the scientific consensus was that the building blocks of one were identical to the building blocks of the other. Elixir tells the story of two young chemists who were not convinced, and how their work rewrote the boundary between life and nonlife.  In the 1830s, Édouard Laugier and Auguste Laurent were working in Laugier Père et Fils, the oldest perfume house in Paris. By day they prepared the perfumery’s revitalizing elixirs and rejuvenating eaux, drawing on alchemical traditions that equated a plant’s vitality with its aroma. In their spare time they hunted the vital force that promised to reveal the secret to life itself. Their ideas, roundly condemned by established chemists, led to the discovery of structural differences between naturally occurring molecules and their synthetic counterparts, even when the molecules were chemically identical.  Scientists still can’t explain this anomaly, but it may point to critical insights concerning the origins of life on Earth. Rich in sparks and smells, brimming with eccentric characters, experimental daring, and the romance of the Bohemian salon, Elixir is a fascinating cultural and scientific history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50359126458641,"sku":"CIN0674250893G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51005441605905,"sku":"NIN9780674250895","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0674250893.jpg?v=1751295212"},{"product_id":"elixir-book-theresa-levitt-9780674301566","title":"Elixir","description":"A Financial Times Best History Book of the Year A Financial Times Summer Reading Favorite  “[V]ividly evokes cultural life in Bohemian Paris, the turbulence of the French Revolution and its aftermath, and the feuds that plagued rival scientists…Levitt’s social history, especially of perfume, is fascinating.” —Wall Street Journal  “A delightful history of science and scent at the dawn of the modern age.”  —Financial Times  “Pulling from historical publications and personal writings, Theresa Levitt vividly explains why perfume—bathed in, lathered on, and orally consumed—had a chokehold on Parisian life.”  —Scientific American  “[A] fascinating account of the birth pangs of organic chemistry in 19th-century Paris…[Levitt] has caught well these dreaming, competitive, daring men in the act of living, each striving compulsively for the giddy, intoxicating bliss of insight into the making of the world.”  —The Times  Until the 1800s, scientists believed that living matter possessed a spirit or essence that differentiated it from nonliving matter. But even as scientific consensus shifted toward the view that all matter shares the same building blocks, some were not convinced.   Elixir tells the story of two dissenters—chemists who redrew the boundary between life and nonlife. In the 1830s, Édouard Laugier and Auguste Laurent worked at Laugier Père et Fils, the oldest perfume house in Paris. By day, they prepared the perfumery’s revitalizing elixirs and rejuvenating eaux. In their spare time, they hunted the vital force underlying life itself. Their ideas, roundly condemned by established chemists, led to the discovery of structural differences between naturally occurring molecules and their synthetic counterparts.  Scientists still can’t explain this anomaly, but it may point to critical insights concerning the origins of life. Rich in sparks and smells, brimming with eccentric characters, experimental audacity, and the romance of the Bohemian salon, Elixir gives a fascinating tour of the alchemical revelations that shaped nineteenth-century Paris—and the modern world.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52495152906513,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52495152972049,"sku":"NIN9780674301566","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780674301566.jpg?v=1775728767"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-theresa-levitt.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}