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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: 24132
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
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| Customer Reviews:
 A sense treasure March 26, 2006
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Being profoundly interested in the human experience I was drawn to the writing of Diane Ackerman and A Natural History of Senses. I went into the read with an open, willing mind, prepared to further understand our five senses. Certainly I was not disappointed, as Ackerman delivered a treasure; poetically diving head first into the sense of smell, touch, taste, hearing, and vision. Ackerman leaves the reader with room to wonder as she lightly dotes on each of the senses without overfilling the reader. She tells the story from the point of view of an active observer and an experience-filled individual. The reader wants to believe and soak in what she writes.
She provides surprising facts, "we can detect over ten thousand odors" for the reader to ponder. In other moments she will mix fact with grand narrative, "music, the perfume of hearing, probably began as a religious act to arouse groups of people." She then might turn and reinforce facts with a personal tidbit, "scuba diving in the Bahamas some years ago, I became aware of two things..." which makes the facts come to life for the reader. Ackerman is brilliant in her mix of personal experiences, rich narrative and interesting trivia. She even throws in a recipe in the footnotes!
One section in the chapter of touch, Adventures in the Touch Dome, is so well done it is as if Ackerman took a video camera through the Exploratorium she was describing and gave the footage verbatim back to the reader. I could almost feel what she was describing. In Ackerman's own words, "the pliant walls give birth to you...or guide you to a sea of what feels like navy beans, or leave you grasping your way forward among rope hammocks." But to be honest the chapter of the mute sense of smell drew me in the furthest. Ackerman appeared the most passionate here; almost seeming to need to defend smell as an under-appreciated sense.
Throughout reading this book, I caught myself thinking of a Cirque de Sol performance. They are masters at engaging the senses. As Ackerman teaches they are not the only ones, "real estate dealers sometimes spray "cake-baking" aromas around the kitchen of a house before showing it to a client." She describes the job of perfumers in how they attract different types of clientele. Certainly it is smart business to positively engage the buyer's senses.
Overall this is a five star book from my viewpoint. Informative, pleasurable, poetic, entertaining are all apt descriptors. I think the major strength of this book was the intention put forth. My imagination tells me Ackerman could have written a book of this size on any one of the senses so if there is a critique it is that some of the sections stop short of fulfilling all the readers needs to understand a particular sense. Ackerman does not try to tell the reader all about the sense of smell or any of the other sense rather she dips a stick in sugar and lets you have a little sample of each, well done.
Sensing our feelings, feeling our senses December 3, 2005
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Ever heard a song or smelt a perfume that took you suddenly and unexpectedly back to another time and place? "What is most amazing is not how our senses span distance or cultures, but how they span time. Our senses connect us intimately with the past, connect us in ways that most of our cherished ideas never could."
I've just finished reading A Natural History of the Senses, a book published in 1990 by Diane Ackerman, a poet and essayist who has gone on to publish two more books following the theme of this one. When I began I thought it as beautifully written and as profound as astronomer Chet Raymo's The Soul of the Night. Ackerman's book, like Raymo's, kindled my sense of wonder on almost every page.
It is a book in which I sense two underlying assumptions. The first, following Thoreau's Walden, that we (all living matter) are very much a product of our environment, and a lot of our physiology has evolved to interpret that environment to our brain. Secondly, that we are now so mechanised, mere technoslaves, that we run the risk of losing that vital connection: once we ignore those signals from our senses about our environment we run the risk of being alienated from it, and alienation is the first step to mental unhealth. The experience of using our body in its normal, healthy state is in itself pleasurable. It is good to remember that life is not all stress and interpersonal pressure, not a shutting out of unpleasant 'facts' by our various addictions. Life is naturally a joyous state.
So let's learn about our senses, but not in any conventional sense of learning, for this is not merely a compendium of facts about the senses but an attempt to encourage us to use our senses, to get us in touch with our feelings (sorry about the pun, but you see how close a tie our brain makes between our emotions and our senses).
The book is divided into five sections, one for each sense, with an epilog which considers the synthesis of the senses and the existence of other senses such as are found in some animals. There are some good thoughts on how unique each species' view of the world is, how particular to our own species is our 'reality'. It is mind expanding to imagine the world as seen and experienced by a spider, for instance, or a cat. One is a little more readier to accept another human's differing viewpoint, for one thing.
My edition was a well produced one (Chapman) with handcut pages, marbled endpapers, well-matched colours in the binding and an expressive jacket picture. It felt, looked and smelt enticing. (I love the smell of books).
"...the latest findings in physiology suggest that the mind doesn't really dwell in the brain but travels the whole body on caravans of hormone and enzyme, busily making sense of the compound wonders we catalog as touch, taste, smell, hearing, vision." The brain we usually think of (the 'grey matter') is part of a system, the nervous system,which occupies our entire body, and which enables us to react successfully to our surroundings. Finding the balance between sensation and analysis of that sensation is hard for us because of our 'big' brain; it parallels what psychologists, following Jung, call the swing between extrovert and introvert tendencies, or what moralists see as the choice between intellect and hedonism. Have you ever seen a plant move a leaf or a blossom to face the sun? It is a graceful and beautiful action: for us finding such a balance between sense and survival is not easy, and other life forms have much to teach us.
We now study 'body language', unfortunately usually to find out how to make other people do what we want them to. But we respond to others' body language with our own, and much of what goes on goes on at a sensory level. Our much neglected sense of smell, for instance, tells us how others are feeling, gives guidance as to the dominance structure of a group and help us to find a sexual mate.
Ackerman's book is not a book on science, but a book that demonstrates what science is for.It is a book that I want to read again, soon. Much of the book's fascination comes from Ackerman's writing itself, the simple and direct style that reveals herself and her feelings as well as explains scientific findings and describes the natural world and human customs and history in poetic images and metaphors. Her lateral cast of mind can find the connections between humans and the world in which we live through mediators such as pheronomes, evolution, the behavior of Monarch butterflies, Cleopatra and Egyptian perfumes, the colour range of insects, the deer who come to her garden, the space shuttle and a thousand other fascinating examples.
Ackerman has done something I admire very much - synthesised culture, science, history and poetry to express a perception of human beings and their worlds. For those who've read this far, I've included my own musings to show just what kind of a book this is. If you read it, be prepared to have insights too. Also recommended is Isabel Allende's Aphrodite and those food films, Like Water for Chocolate and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.
intriguing history November 9, 2005
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
Naturalist-writer Diane Ackerman explores our five senses, and also devotes a chapter to synesthesia, or the ability to assign colors to sounds. Beginning with smell,she explores such diverse topics as monarch butterflies, perspiration, pheromones, sneezing, roses and perfume makes. In "Touch," she focuses on the contrast between animals and humans, kissing, pain, taboos and more. In "Taste," she describes the connection between food and sex, including chocolate. In "Hearing," she deals with music and deafness among other topics. And in a "Vision," she looks at light, color and how to watch the sky, among other topics. In some places, Ackerman's prose is almost painfully rich, but in others it deftly captures the aspects of this sensual exploration.
 An intriguing read July 12, 2005
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
Diane Ackerman has crafted another stimulating book with her trademark wit, eloquence and keen sense for adventure. She weaves together trivia, science, history with her own travels. This is not a book that you will sit down and finish in an afternoon, rather one that you would read morsel by morsel and savor. So why 4 stars instead of 5? Despite being such an enjoyable read, some of the material seems to be rehashed from her book "Rarest of the Rare". Not necessarily a bad thing, but I just finished reading that book before this one and found myself wanting to skip ahead.
A New Look At Our World December 22, 2004
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
This is such a delight of a book! Diane Ackerman takes the time to stop and smell the roses... well smell, touch, taste, hear and see the rose. Even though the five senses are our only way of knowing the world for the most part we just take them for granted-but no more!
Taking each of these senses in turn Ackerman delves into every aspect imaginable of that sense- cultural, psychological and historical. While usually few things frustrate me more than an unfocused writer that is not the case in this work. Ackerman is not so much trying to head anywhere, as she is trying to explore these topics, so her meanderings are delightful rather than aggravating.
The single most impressive thing about this book is how researched it seems to be. While Ackerman's insights and style certainly are not insignificant the enlightening (and sometimes strange) facts that fill this book make it so enjoyable to spend a lazy afternoon with. This was my first book by Diane Ackerman but it will certainly not be my last!
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