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| A Natural History of the Senses | 
| Author: Diane Ackerman
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $0.39
You Save: $14.56 (97%)
New (42) Collectible (3) from $6.20
Avg. Customer Rating:  63 reviews
Sales Rank: 22454
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 0.8
ISBN: 0679735666
Dewey Decimal Number: 152.1
EAN: 9780679735663
ASIN: 0679735666
Publication Date: September 10, 1991
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Not for the Left-brained, Delicious for the Right-brained June 27, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Some of the other reviewers who didn't rate this book very highly mentioned mostly that it was too "cloying" and not factual enough. In my opinion these readers misunderstood the intention of the author and were looking for a science textbook. Sure the title may leave you to expect that, but reading the synopsis or even the reviews can tell you to expect something different.
The intent of the author, again in my mind, was a social study of the senses VIA the senses - she used the language of the senses so we could have a sense-ful experience. Since one can only experience their own senses, she of course used many of her sense experiences to be able to add the most enticing language. Note that she incorporated just as many quotes from other artists/writers describing their own sense experiences. The result was successfully full of senses, which her point was that we don't notice and appreciate our senses and how they've influenced our society enough, and if that is cloying to some then they're all the more in need of using their senses.
I particularly like how she blends in philosphy and facts into the reading so you aren't aware you're picking up gems. I underlined a lot of words to meditate on. Just goes to show how much how we use our senses shapes our world.
Summary: If you're looking for a bland scientific text on the senses look elsewhere (or better yet learn to use another part of your brain with this book). Otherwise indulge yourself in it's poetry. Yummy.
ONE BIG LUSCIOUS CELEBRATION OF HUMAN FACULTIES April 28, 2007
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
Taking inventory of the five senses may at first seem a simple and scientific theme perhaps better suited to a book meant for junior high, but there's nothing prosaic about this epic work of staggering proportions. Ms. Ackerman manages to smoosh in such a diverse array of beguiling facts about our sensibilities and the world within which we perceive them, and with such lyrical splendor, that reading this book is a grand sensory carnival in itself.
Because the senses are both natural and cultural--we share them with animals, but they also form the bases of human institutions--she glides smoothly from, say, the mating habits of mice to the activities of the international perfume industry. Wondrous sounds and rich imagery are made available to us on molecular, diagnostic, and even galactic levels. Why do leaves change hues in the fall? What makes crocodiles dance? What would the world sound like if we could hear all its frequencies? How do we feel pain? What do our pheromones try to tell us? How would Helen Keller 'hear' a symphony? What have scientists learned from people who are missing one or more of the senses?
This is no pedestrian treatise. Some readers may find the prose extravagant--and to them my advice would be to read the book in fits and starts, not in one weekend sitting--but like Stephen Gould or Annie Dillard or other such maestro raconteurs of science and nature, Ackerman comes across as an adventurous soul who seems to experience nature firsthand and then describe it with an eager enthusiasm that is both personal and learned. As readers, we simply savor the companionship on a sparkling journey. This remains one of my most dog-eared and gifted books of all time. Get it pronto if you don't already have one, and be prepared to be mesmerized.
Beyond the book September 3, 2006
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
She's an amazing writer. Her artistic, sensual passion wins the day, though she warms up to good science, too. If you enjoy all things Ackerman, or if you are especiallly interested in the senses, then you'll love Nova's "Mystery of the Senses." This is a 5-part documentary featuring each of the major senses. It is based on this book, primarily. It is narrated by Ackerman, and you'll find her (and her glorious '80s era hair) taking mudbaths, sitting by a stream, etc. The video set, like this book, bridges the gap between sensuality and science; experience and explanation.
"The Heady Succulence of Life" (p. 41) August 29, 2006
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Imagine having a witty and informed guided tour of one's own sensory apparatus! That is what Ackerman offers. By turns intensely intellectual and cybaritic, the result is an irresistable romp through the world of newly magnified familiarities.
Some gems: chocolate as "an emotional food" (p. 154). "Hands are messengers of emotion" (p. 118). "The tongue is like a kingdom divided into principalities according to sensory talent" (p. 139).
And on page 20: "Smell was the first of our senses, and it was so successful that in time the small lump of olfactory tissue atop the nerve cord grew into a brain. Our cerebral hemispheres were originally buds from the olfactory stalks. We THINK because we SMELLED."
Highly recommended. A terrific mental flight while trying to endure air travel!
 A mixture of the memorable, the informative, and the banal June 20, 2006
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
Essayist and poet Diane Ackerman is probably best known for her wonderful New Yorker articles on her investigations of the animal kingdom (including extraordinarily memorable pieces on bats and penguins), most of which have been collected in books. In those acclaimed essays, her idiosyncratic and emotive musings transform the behaviors of other creatures to a human and humane understanding while avoiding anthropomorphic traps.
In "A Natural History of the Senses," Ackerman shifts her considerable observational skills from the animal realm to more familiar human territory. She divides her discussion into the five senses, plus a short section on "synesthesia"; in spite of the book's title, there's not much history involved. Somewhat like her essays on nature, each chapter includes random observations, anecdotes, and thoughts on the various aspects of the topic at hand.
Some of Ackerman's morsels are first-class, and she seems particularly to hit her stride in the section on "Taste." Her distinctive wit is on full display when she discusses the food endured by survivalists, such as a recipe for moose soup: "I particularly like the recipe's opening: 'You've just killed a moose.' It reminds me of recipe I read for stir-fried dog, which began: 'First clean and eviscerate a healthy puppy.'" Her book is a pleasure in such instances, when it reads like a turbo-charged entry of an encyclopedia, explaining "why polar bears are not white" or pondering the aesthetics of full-body tattoos or interviewing a human "nose" for a fragrance manufacturer or investigating the importance of touch for the healthy development of prematurely born infants.
What works for her essays in zoology, however, doesn't always work for a study of our own species; she sometimes writes as if she were explaining our everyday experiences to a race of aliens. Her prose especially sags when she reduces abstractions to a not-very-informative series of metaphors, platitudes, and non-sequiturs: "Sounds thicken the sensory stew of our lives, and we depend on them to help us interpret, communicate with, and express the world around us. Outer space is silent, but on earth almost everything can make a sound. Couples have favorite songs...." Even for a book on the senses, this is all a bit too touchy-feely.
Similarly, she has a tick of expanding a concept with a prose list of synonyms and puns that reduces our senses to the stimulations found in a thesaurus. Her several paragraphs on how "our language is steeped in visual imagery," for example, contain an interminable number of sentences similar to the following: "We quickly see through people whose characters are transparent. And, heaven knows, we learn for enlightenment.... Ideas dawn on us, if we're bright enough, not dim-witted, especially if we're visionary." I'm not sure I "see" the point of these lengthy and repetitive passages.
Overall, the book is certainly worth mining for its liberally scattered gems, but at times I found it tedious and simplistic as a cover-to-cover read.
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