A Feast in Every Sense
The Mystery, Marvel, and New Science of Our Senses
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A Feast in Every Sense
Narrated by:
Jane Oppenheimer
Pre-order Now for £16.66
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Narrated by:
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Jane Oppenheimer
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By:
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Diane Ackerman
Summary
“This book is truly sensational—lavish, lyrical, revelatory. These pages make you glad to be alive!”—Sy Montgomery, author of The Soul of an Octopus
A Feast in Every Sense is Diane Ackerman's luscious and tender journey into the mystery of our modern sensory lives, a grand tour that captures the heady feelings of being alive. She introduces us to receptors that create the creamy sensation of a perfectly ripe avocado, sound waves that allow us to identify hot versus cold water by sound alone, skin sensors that lower pain and change brain chemistry at a lover's touch.
The sensory universe colors every morsel of human existence. Why does sitting in a hard chair make you a harder bargainer? Why does Tylenol decrease empathy? Why does sipping a bitter drink invite harsher moral judgments? How does the time of day you receive a flu vaccine or an organ transplant affect its success? Is airplane food really that dull, or do our cravings and sense of taste warp at altitude? What sensory rebels have lived at the frontiers of perception? So many mysteries, good and bad, can only be understood through our senses.
Ackerman also uses new scientific discoveries, like our host of Secret Senses—ever-vigilant scouts—to explain life's intricacies and understand how the world's endless stimuli combine with our inner lives to form our deepest thoughts, feelings, hardships and joys.
Blending history, science, personal experience, and a poet's eye, A Feast in Every Sense is both an ambrosial display of how we process the beauty around us and a call to rediscover what it means to be fully embodied and alive in a world brimming with wonders.
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Critic reviews
“Twelve years of longing for a new Diane Ackerman book are sumptuously rewarded in A Feast in Every Sense. This book is truly sensational—lavish, lyrical, revelatory. These pages make you glad to be alive!”—Sy Montgomery, bestselling author of The Soul of an Octopus
“Diane Ackerman’s hyperdeveloped sense of wonder makes her an irresistible guide through the labyrinth of our senses—from the familiar realms of hearing, smell, vision, taste, and touch to newly recognized ‘secret senses’ that shape our sense of self and our perception of the world. Again and again, this book turns scientific discovery into delight.”—Dava Sobel, author of The Elements of Marie Curie
“In a word, this book is succulent! Diane Ackerman wields her poet’s quill at science and turns captivating research into a full-bodied sensory delight. Her gorgeous descriptions pop off the page and into your body while you absorb a cornucopia of astonishing facts spanning species and space. It is impossible to resist the passion for human experience that A Feast in Every Sense ignites, and the gratified reader is left infatuated and on a journey to discover their own sensory terrains.”—Rachel S. Herz, PhD, author of The Scent of Desire
“Diane Ackerman’s new book combines a delightful exposition of our human senses with lyrical prose, easily digestible scientific information, and engaging storytelling, and is, like Ms. Ackerman’s previous books, a testimony to her own extraordinary sensuality.”—Alan Lightman, bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams
“The poet laureate of the sensory world returns with a lively follow-up to her Natural History of the Senses, serving up a ‘companion volume’ built on four decades of subsequent scientific discoveries about how our sensory organs work to inform us of where and who we are. . . . A sumptuous banquet of elegantly written observations on how we perceive the world—and it us.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“An exuberant exploration of perception, demonstrating how new scientific understanding has expanded knowledge of how humans experience the world . . . Ackerman sheds light on surprising discoveries . . . and imbues her lucid explanations with lyricism and wit. . . . Readers will savor this.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Conveyed in scintillating prose and drawing on omnivorous research, adventurous field work, exuberant imagination, and profound appreciation, this is a resplendent and exhilarating pageant of sensory ingenuity.”—Booklist, starred review
“Diane Ackerman’s hyperdeveloped sense of wonder makes her an irresistible guide through the labyrinth of our senses—from the familiar realms of hearing, smell, vision, taste, and touch to newly recognized ‘secret senses’ that shape our sense of self and our perception of the world. Again and again, this book turns scientific discovery into delight.”—Dava Sobel, author of The Elements of Marie Curie
“In a word, this book is succulent! Diane Ackerman wields her poet’s quill at science and turns captivating research into a full-bodied sensory delight. Her gorgeous descriptions pop off the page and into your body while you absorb a cornucopia of astonishing facts spanning species and space. It is impossible to resist the passion for human experience that A Feast in Every Sense ignites, and the gratified reader is left infatuated and on a journey to discover their own sensory terrains.”—Rachel S. Herz, PhD, author of The Scent of Desire
“Diane Ackerman’s new book combines a delightful exposition of our human senses with lyrical prose, easily digestible scientific information, and engaging storytelling, and is, like Ms. Ackerman’s previous books, a testimony to her own extraordinary sensuality.”—Alan Lightman, bestselling author of Einstein’s Dreams
“The poet laureate of the sensory world returns with a lively follow-up to her Natural History of the Senses, serving up a ‘companion volume’ built on four decades of subsequent scientific discoveries about how our sensory organs work to inform us of where and who we are. . . . A sumptuous banquet of elegantly written observations on how we perceive the world—and it us.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“An exuberant exploration of perception, demonstrating how new scientific understanding has expanded knowledge of how humans experience the world . . . Ackerman sheds light on surprising discoveries . . . and imbues her lucid explanations with lyricism and wit. . . . Readers will savor this.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Conveyed in scintillating prose and drawing on omnivorous research, adventurous field work, exuberant imagination, and profound appreciation, this is a resplendent and exhilarating pageant of sensory ingenuity.”—Booklist, starred review
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