A Natural History of the Senses

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It's a hit!

This book is absolutely gorgeous. Ackerman's writing style is as lush as the sensory experiences she describes. It's like a mindfulness book withou... (show more)

This book is absolutely gorgeous. Ackerman's writing style is as lush as the sensory experiences she describes. It's like a mindfulness book without the new age slant. Reminds me that there's so much around me to be appreciated and devoured. I wonder what we sacrifice when we spend so much of our time in a virtual world... (show less)

 

 

by Facebook-användare

No, it's a flop!

Yeah, I really didn't finish this book. I made it through 4 of the 5 senses, then I just got bored and reached for another book.

 

 

by Yavette Hayward

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  Although some of the theories it promulgates are now outdated, e.g. she states there are only four different tastes (five are now acknowledged) and they are each triggered in specific places in the tongue (refuted), etc., Diane Ackerman's 1990 bestseller A Natural History of the Senses still makes for compelling reading 19 years later. A poet, Ackerman is a master of descriptive detail for each of the realms she explores, in turn: smell, touch, taste, hearing, and vision. She does a particula... (show more)

  Although some of the theories it promulgates are now outdated, e.g. she states there are only four different tastes (five are now acknowledged) and they are each triggered in specific places in the tongue (refuted), etc., Diane Ackerman's 1990 bestseller A Natural History of the Senses still makes for compelling reading 19 years later. A poet, Ackerman is a master of descriptive detail for each of the realms she explores, in turn: smell, touch, taste, hearing, and vision. She does a particularly amazing job, I thought, with her chapter on smell. But as a composer and otherwise music-obsessed person, I was a tad disappointed in her section on hearing even though her name-dropping of Schoenberg, plus her descriptions of specific musical intervals (though admittedly borrowed from Deryck Cooke's The Language of Music) were a joy to read in a book targeted to a general reader. And her definition of music is downright synesthesiac: "Music is the perfume of hearing." Wow. That blew my mind so thoroughly when I read it that I posted a short essay about it to NewMusicBox (http://www.newmusicbox.org/chatter/chatter.nmbx?id=6085); comments to it there are welcome. (show less)

   

  by Frank J Oteri on Jul 29, 2009 at 12:00PM

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  This is a quirky collection of factoids that will keep you reading, take for example,'We hallucinate sounds more often than sights".That factoid is from the hearing chapter. My favorite section would have to be in the taste sense section, subsection ' In Praise of Vanilla'. Ackerman poetically guides you to observe and admire many everyday things. This chapter seduced me into purchasing vanilla beans for the very first time in my life.
  Some paragraphs can get a bit flowery for my rea... (show more)

  This is a quirky collection of factoids that will keep you reading, take for example,'We hallucinate sounds more often than sights".That factoid is from the hearing chapter. My favorite section would have to be in the taste sense section, subsection ' In Praise of Vanilla'. Ackerman poetically guides you to observe and admire many everyday things. This chapter seduced me into purchasing vanilla beans for the very first time in my life.
  Some paragraphs can get a bit flowery for my reading pleasure...that it all scan-able to get back to the good stuff.Her vocabulary tidbits footnoted throughout are like gems to hunt for. Do not skip reading the prologue ,the goodies are hiding every place. (show less)

   

   

  by Facebook-användare on May 20, 2009 at 03:07AM

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