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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
Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Dang!! Ms. Ackerman's already spoken for... November 26, 2004
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
As a nearly constant rule, I can count on reading and enjoying
a work based solely on the ink on the page and it's effect on
my mental processes and wanderings.
Not this time--Not this writer.
Between her knowledge of enough Science to make me want to
dig for more, and her Art, which will drive me to more of her work, it's probably best that we live on continentally-separated
coasts. I believe I would LOVE to know this person. I'm also
pretty sure that I could become an ambulatory poster boy
for the well-used cliche about Old Fools.
What a wonderful subject upon which to loose a mind of such
incredible sensuality.
I'd recommend this book [and do] to anyone who retains even
the tiniest door open to curiousity and wonder.
I'm not even finished with the book...
I thought that it might slip off a bit at the end. Wrong again,
the next-to-last chapter, 'Synesthesia,' left me unable to continue highlighting passages...the notations extended past
paragraphs, past pages.
Just buy, read it...it's fourteen bucks you'll be glad
you traded for art.
Lee
[Ms. A., fear not, I'm too old to stalk, too mentally buzzed
to still-hunt.]
A Winner for Content and Style October 17, 2004
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Every time I see a baby make a face I think of this book. So many questions that I never even thought to ask are answered in this beautiful tour through our senses.
Ms. Ackerman breaks down our entire ability to perceive into seven bite sized pieces. In the end, you'll know yourself better than when you started.
The first graph in her chapter on vision is worth the price of the book. She builds a "sense" of drama before the climax of declaring you a predator. The present tense explanation of how we really use our senses is convincingly proven with irrefutable rhetorical questions that prove the universality of how and why we react to stimuli the way we do.
Read this book and the you'll see why your child doesn't eat her brussels sprouts. It's too bad wine is an alcoholic beverage. If it weren't, the best wine critics would be second graders.
 Having your cake and eating it September 11, 2004
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
Ackerman's florid style captures the reader from the first page. Her "sense-luscious" description of the world seizes your imagination, compelling you to learn what she means. What she means is then paraded before you as a wealth of information clothed in descriptive finery [see how catching it can be?!]. It turns out that the more imagination you possess, the more attuned to the world you can be. If that sounds vague, it's because it is - and it sets the tone for this book. Ackerman has a great store of metaphor and illustration to draw upon, and little is left out. Her prose leaves the reader breathless with its powerful, flowery, imagery. Add the semblance of scientific references as a decor and you seem to have a book of meaningful insights. What you really have is a sense of exhaustion.
The book's organisation is readily assumed. The five senses are marched by, each bearing samplings of how they work in humans and the other animals. She declares that nothing is "more memorable than a smell", although it's humanity's weakest sense. She reminds us that we are predators because our eyes are in front, granting us binocular vision, instead of at the side like prey species needing to keep watch. Touch evokes a wealth of sketchy assertions about "caring", especially for babies. The babies aren't just human, giving that aspect of life a universality reaching beyond generations of teachings. In dealing with taste, she portrays the Roman elite, with its extravagant behaviour as representing all society. Hearing, of course, raises the "tree falling in the forest" question, to which Ackerman responds with a firm "No", since our brain failed to interpret the quivering air thus displaced. Helen Keller's pronouncements are given much attention, while Beethoven is granted two partial comments, which turn out to be Deryck Cooke's assessment.
Reading Ackerman is rather like taking the ingredients of a cake and consuming them without mixing or baking. There's a feeling of satiated fullness afterward, but the plethora of different flavours isn't anything as pleasing as a finished cake would have been. There's much information here, but Ackerman's style is such that you feel compelled to rush through it to see what new metaphors or opulent phrases will arise. She decribes numerous studies and research, but we never learn who did them, when or under what circumstances. Her reading list only turns out to be more of the same type of presentation, although clearly none of her "references" is up to her prose quality. But then, none of them are poets. A fun read, and a worthy source to dazzle cocktail party colleagues. Just make certain none of the other guests knows any physiology.
[stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Just Beautiful September 1, 2004
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
This is my favorite nonfiction book, bar none. It is written like a novel and yet, manages to be chock full of textbook-worthy information. The chapter on smell is simply incredible. I have loaned out countless copies of this book, never received one of them back, and just keep buying more. Please just buy yourself a copy so I can hang on to mine.
This book changed my life... July 11, 2004
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I read "A Natural History of the Senses" about ten years ago just a few months out of art school. I thought that I was fully engaged in the world and was aware of all that was around me. I soon learned that I was mistaken. I had been moving through the world virtually half-asleeep, just pushing my way through crowds and not really paying attention. I began opening myself fully to all experiences (through my senses) and I started to feel alive in a new way. I began a slow but steady transformation that has meant everything to me. Touch moved me most and eventually I went back to school and became a Massage Therapist. I am able, not only to experience my world in a new way; but I am also able to share something as comforting as massage with someone else. That is truly amazing!!Diane Ackerman's style is enlightening and poetic. A Natural History of the Senses is one of those books that you share with good friends and read over and over again. I still have my very first paperback copy (now autographed and a bit tattered) and it inspires me to be aware every day!
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