Jack Turner Precisely Quotations

I have always felt that history, and especially cultural history, is best when it takes the broad view. In the case of spices, much of the fascination of the subject lies precisely in its intoxicating variety; I felt that to do it justice the writing had to be anything but narrowly focused, dry and dusty itself. I was determined to put some of that variety into my writing.

A Muslim friend of mine who has just read the book points out to me that Islam retains a similar duality over paradise. In paradise the righteous are rewarded with precisely what is forbidden on earth.