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

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “thrilling” (The New York Times), “dazzling” (The Wall Street Journal) tour of the radically different ways that animals perceive the world that will fill you with wonder and forever alter your perspective, by Pulitzer Prize–winning science journalist Ed Yong “One of this year’s finest works of narrative nonfiction.”—Oprah Daily ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, People, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Slate, Reader’s Digest, Chicago Public Library, Outside, Publishers Weekly, BookPage ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Oprah Daily, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Economist, Smithsonian Magazine, Prospect (UK), Globe & Mail, Esquire, Mental Floss, Marginalian, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal The Earth teems with sights and textures, sounds and vibrations, smells and tastes, electric and magnetic fields. But every kind of animal, including humans, is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of our immense world. In An Immense World, Ed Yong coaxes us beyond the confines of our own senses, allowing us to perceive the skeins of scent, waves of electromagnetism, and pulses of pressure that surround us. We encounter beetles that are drawn to fires, turtles that can track the Earth’s magnetic fields, fish that fill rivers with electrical messages, and even humans who wield sonar like bats. We discover that a crocodile’s scaly face is as sensitive as a lover’s fingertips, that the eyes of a giant squid evolved to see sparkling whales, that plants thrum with the inaudible songs of courting bugs, and that even simple scallops have complex vision. We learn what bees see in flowers, what songbirds hear in their tunes, and what dogs smell on the street. We listen to stories of pivotal discoveries in the field, while looking ahead at the many mysteries that remain unsolved. Funny, rigorous, and suffused with the joy of discovery, An Immense World takes us on what Marcel Proust called “the only true voyage . . . not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes.” WINNER OF THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • FINALIST FOR THE KIRKUS PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON AWARD

“A blend of research findings and real-world anecdotes about people’s sensory experiences enlivens this historical view of the science behind perception.” —Science News Ever wonder why some people have difficulty recognizing faces or why food found delicious in one culture is reviled in another? John M. Henshaw ponders these and other surprising facts in this fascinating and fast-paced tour of the senses. From when stimuli first excite our senses to the near-miraculous sense organs themselves to the mystery of how our brain interprets senses, Henshaw explains the complex phenomena of how we see, feel, taste, touch, and smell. He takes us through the rich history of sensory perception, dating back to Aristotle’s classification of the five main senses, and helps us understand the science and technology behind sensory research today. A Tour of the Senses travels beyond our human senses. Henshaw describes artificial sensing technologies and instruments, unusual sensory abilities of the animal kingdom, and techniques for improving, rehabilitating, and even replacing sense organs. This entertaining introduction to sensory science is a clever mix of research findings and real-world stories that helps us understand the complex processes that turn sensory stimuli into sophisticated brain responses. “A Tour of the Senses is a fun book, which may be of interest to anyone who’s ever wondered how the eye or ear works.” —American Journal of Human Biology

In this concise series of lectures, Rudolf Steiner shows how the human senses reveal the mysterious world of the will, which is at once a spiritual and physical phenomenon. The senses act as a portal connecting our physical and etheric bodies with what Steiner refers to as worlds of "all-pervading will" and "all-pervading wisdom." He elaborates this theme, giving some unexpected and delightful insigts into the senses of hearing and sight, and in particular how we experience colour. Steiner suggests that divine spiritual beings had different intentions for the formation of physical human beings, but that adversary powers caused disruption, leading to a more materialized constitution. He describes disorders in the connections between the human physical, etheric, astral and ego bodies, and the ill effects of one aspect overpowering the others. He gives insight into human glandular secretions, and why we need to eat and digest--also connected to the intervention of adversary beings.

Sensing the World: An Anthropology of the Senses is a highly original and comprehensive overview of the anthropology and sociology of the body and the senses. Discussing each sense in turn – seeing, hearing, touch, smell, and taste – Le Breton has written a truly monumental work, vast in scope and deeply engaging in style. Among other pioneering moves, he gives equal attention to light and darkness, sound and silence, and his disputation of taste explores aspects of disgust and revulsion. Part phenomenological, part historical, this is above all a cultural account of perception, which returns the body and the senses to the center of social life. Le Breton is the leading authority on the anthropology of the body and the senses in French academia. With a repute comparable to the late Pierre Bourdieu, his 30+ books have been translated into numerous languages. This is the first of his works to be made available in English. This sensuously nuanced translation of La Saveur du monde is accompanied by a spicy preface from series editor David Howes, who introduces Le Breton's work to an English-speaking audience and highlights its implications for the disciplines of anthropology, sociology, and the cross-disciplinary field of sensory studies.

GodÕs world is full of amazing things. Good thing God gave us five senses to experience it! Frolic board books playfully introduce basic faith concepts in a way thatÕs fun and age appropriate for very small children.