A Natural History of the Senses | 
| Author: Diane Ackerman
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  58 reviews
Sales Rank: 13545
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
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Pages are stained and wavy from past water damage.
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
"One of the real tests of writers," notes Ackerman in this liveliest of nature books, "is how well they write about smells. If they can't describe the scent of sanctity in a church, can you trust them to describe the suburbs of the heart?" Ackerman passes the test, writing with ease and fluency about the five senses. Did you know that bat guano smells like stale Wheat Thins? That Bach's music can quell anger around the world? That the leaves that shimmer so beautifully in fall have "no adaptive purpose"? Ackerman does, and she guides us through questions of sensation with an eye for the amusingly arcane reference and just the right phrase.
Product Description
Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth. "Delightful . . . gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds the senses take in."--The New York Times. (Literature--Classics & Contemporary)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 53 more reviews...
 Warning: This book could change your life! April 27, 2008
Ackerman brilliantly weaves science, history, anthropology, and personal anecdotes in this incredible book. After reading it, I've become more conscious of everything around me-smells, tastes, textures, sights, sounds. The chapter on smell is especially powerful.
If you are a fan of Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, then you will love this book as well.
 The Human Experience January 16, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
A Natural History of the Senses is a wild romp through smell, taste, hearing, touch and sight. It is also a guided tour of how humans experience the world. At times the writing has a rare beauty to the point of being poetic while at other times it is exotic, intimate and revealing.
Each chapter reveals the intricacies of the topic at hand except the last two chapters seem slightly off focus. At times Diane Ackerman deviates wildly from her chosen topic and then gets back on track. For example, while discussing vision she ends up talking about weather patterns.
Through this book you may discover how kissing originated or why tea is harmful without milk. Why do woman crave pickles during pregnancy? What motivates people to watch horror movies?
Diane Ackerman is well traveled and has a inquisitive mind. I enjoyed reading new information about chocolate, vanilla and truffles. If you like to keep yourself fortified with useful information then this book is destined to please.
~The Rebecca Review
Delightful digressions December 26, 2007
A collection of delightful and digressive essays about smelling, tasting, touching, hearing and seeing. It's meant for entertainment rather than solid instruction. (Read my "Psychiatry of Stroke" to get the anatomy and physiology). Ackerman covers some of the science but there are no illustrations, tables or references (except for a list of books for further reading at the end) and it leans to the humanities rather than technology. My copy has a 1990 publication date and I don't know if it's been revised. There's nothing about the discoveries concerning the sense of smell that brought Linda Buck and Richard Axel the 2004 Nobel Prize.
The prose style is something you might love or hate, with many complex sentences and unusual words and much display of erudition. Some of the insights were brilliant and original but I would agree with the reviewer who found some of them to be platitudes.
Staying alive November 27, 2007
Recommended by a friend, this wonderful exploration of our apprehension extensions was an excellent follow-up to Tor Norretranders' THE USER ILLUSION (Viking Penguin, 1998). Where the latter work explained how tiny our conscious awareness is in relation to our total mental process, Ackerman's HISTORY is a delicious jacuzzi-soak in each of the five nerve groupings we call smell, touch, taste, hearing and sight. From the origin of the modern brain as a swelling of the olfactory bulb, to therapeutic massage, ritual cannabilism, the whistling of bats and the unifying vision of our era -- the Apollo photo of Big Blue -- Ackerman leads us to "synesthesia" -- the interactivation of one sense with others, a caleidescope of input and thought. The author is part science writer and part voluptuary, attending a conference or languidly enjoying an aromatic massage with (almost) equal delectation. One exits this book ready to smell more sensitively, taste more thoughtfully, touch loved ones more often, and take time to discern nuances of sound and sight. Like a leap from sauna to snow bank, Ackerman's HISTORY is a refreshing reminder of the mutliple delights of being alive.
A welcome feast for the senses August 18, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
{Review writte in July 2004}
I read A Natural History of the Senses back in 1991, when it first came out ...
If you're an aspiring writer, if you enjoy meditation and/or sensory deprivation (or other activities designed to heighten your sensory awareness), or even if you're just an unpracticed closet sensualist eager for new experiences, then do not walk ... RUN ... run out and by this book. Better still, click on our "Buy Books" link, locate it, and select overnight shipment. You'll thank me for it.
Yes, it really is THAT good.
Ackerman gives us a first hand tour de force overview of our 5 bodily senses, from the historical, scientific, philosophical, artistic and literary vantagepoints. With the giddy delight of someone with a rapt attention for fine details, not to mention a true gift for words, she takes us on a rich journey of the subtle and the sublime ... from the musky scent of fire-warmed leather, to the plaintive cry of a lonely loon hidden in the misty wilderness, to the rousing plushness of crushed velvet, to the crisp-tart taste of muscat grapes plucked straight from their sun-ripened vines.
No need for me to wax poetic, because that's what this work is all about ... it's a master class in understanding the senses we use to percieve the world itself.
Sure, there are people out there who think that books like this are just lightweight literary fluff ... such people reveal themselves to be the same undiscerning people who are blindly content to live on fast food slop, who never stop to relax and fully appreciate a beautiful sunset, and who mechanically motor off into the rat race without pausing for a long moment to nuzzle in the musky warmth of their lover's neck and hair, and to beam love for a long languid moment into their mate's eyes. For those cannot appreciate the subtleties such things, I feel nothing but pity. Go right ahead and wallow in your detached mediocrity ... and whatever you do, do NOT buy this book, because it'll only upset you to realize all the things you've been missing out on all these years. You've been living your life in the lowest possible resolution, and you have nobody to blame but yourself.
Anyway, this book is easily one of the most enjoyable and satisfying books I've read to date.
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