You and I live in a literacy bubble, and can’t really imagine what it is like not to.
According to 2020 data, a whopping 54% of Americans have low literacy skills, either in English or Spanish. This means they are unable to do things like read and understand longer prose texts, and are not capable of reading books written for adults. Nor can they do simple things like infer the meaning of, say, a basic metaphor in a poem, nor even read and comprehend a magazine or newspaper article, and the like.
More than half of American adults read below the sixth-grade level, and more than one in five have the lowest level of literacy, meaning they are unable to understand even very basic vocabulary, and have difficulty using or understanding any printed materials. They can only read commonplace prose texts like signs, or written instructions contained in very short, very simple documents. They can only understand comparisons of contrasting ideas if the data is broken out with bullet points or other visual aids.
America’s adults read, on average, at Level 2, which is considered “below-basic” literacy by researchers. Our average literacy score is 270, out of a possible score of 500, which is below the global average. (And consider that the global average includes all of the developing countries that lack compulsory public education!)
And unfortunately, going to college isn’t the solution: fewer than a third of college graduates are proficient even in “everyday literacy.” Sadly, someone not being able to read a book I think diminishes their life, and their life prospects.
But you can read a book. So I’ve decided to do a quick write-up on one of my favorite books for you, one that I think will help you flourish and live more fully, even if, sadly, non-readers will not be able to benefit from it. (I’ve been asked many times over the last 25 years for book recommendations, or for a list of my favorite books, etc. Perhaps this is because starting back in 2005 I spent years interviewing leading authors about their books, and generally would read at least a book each week in order to conduct these interviews.)
The following title has so far been one of my two favorite books that I’ve recommended and given as a gift time and again. There are others I’ve repeatedly given as gifts, and maybe I’ll get to them later, but for now, I want to tell you why you should read A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman.
Diane Ackerman, a celebrated poet and one of my favorite science writers, has written a number of compelling books over the years on neuroscience, anthropology, aviation, botany and gardening, the science of love, the science of playfulness, a couple of poetic nonfiction books about endangered animals, and she has even written a book sharing her insights from her time as a suicide hotline worker.
But it is her book on our five senses and how better to delight in them that I have gifted countless times to friends ever since I first read it during Bible College in my early 20s.1 A Natural History of the Senses is a manifesto for living in the natural world with a bursting sense of wonder but utterly without supernaturalism (although I should say she doesn’t really spend time fisking religious belief in the book).
A scientifically-informed and succulent celebration of the here and now, it’s a powerful antidote to one of society’s big ills, which is how detached most everyone is from the richness of living presently in the real world because they ignore their bodily sensations, encased instead in our urban confines, often so busy and distracted by devices and with to-do lists and our constant focus on work and family life and future goals. Ackerman’s voluptuous prose seduces us to pay attention to the five sense-pleasures of touch, taste, hearing, vision, and smell. It gets us to relish in the bodily delights that truly help define the good life, bodily delights most people increasingly live without.2
When is the last time you savored the delicate silkiness of a flower’s petal, or were immersed in the vibrant green sky-flash that often happens immediately at sunset? This orienting question isn’t as mundane as it sounds, and Ackerman’s prose poetry helps us get back to that savoring of our mammalian nature through sensory experiences. She spends pages on stuff like getting an immersive aromatic massage combining touch and smell, or simply on the act of really savoring our everyday lunches.3
Ackerman brings to life the experience of the world’s tangible beauty through great science writing, but also through history writing, which is also sort of like nature writing but about human nature. She has so many great lines that will stick with you, like “violets smell like burnt sugar cubes that have been dipped in lemon and velvet.” (They really do smell like that.)
She constantly uses one sense experience to describe another sense experience, and frequently cites perfectly form-fitting illustrations from the classics of the Western literary tradition, from Proust to Joyce, or Dante to Shakespeare or the Bible, and so many more. Or she gets into linguistics and cultural anthropology to explain the connection of this or that sense experience to our real-world lives, like about the West African language that has a word that means both “kiss” and “smell” — in the sense that a kiss is actually a lingering smelling of a loved one.
A Natural History of the Senses explores the evolutionary biology and the evolutionary psychology of the senses, and teaches why we evolved with such abilities, as well as a little bit of the how. Ackerman surveys what’s happening at the neurological level and at the sense-organ level when we use our various senses. But she also examines our everyday experiences using the tools of various scientific disciplines like molecular biology, organic chemistry, and biophysics, explaining what’s really going on when we do something as simple as seeing and smelling a flower. And she is a great storyteller: as one example, she recounts her time at a private perfume laboratory in Manhattan in such an artful way that it makes you want to switch careers.
Her enthusiasm for “sensuism” (as opposed to “sensualism,” which is just about gratifying sexual desire) invites us to see that indulging in our physical senses is not just something for a leisurely or lazy aesthete idling away all day on some sunken or sagging divan. Instead, sensuism is one of the fundamental methods of living the secular good life. Like a much more poetic Paul Kurtz talking about the “zest of living,” Ackerman calls us to have a “love affair with life . . . as variously as possible.” Or like a more literary Maude, she exhorts us to “groom our curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred galloping over thick, sun-struck hills every day.” Her passion for sense-loving this immediate and tangible world, rather than on yearning for a sense-denying distant and ethereal one, is inspiring.
I like that she once had an affair with Carl Sagan. She calls herself a “great experiencer,” which is something I think we all should be. This book, which is itself quite a sense experience in its reading because of its sheer breadth of hungry interdisciplinary exploration, will certainly help. You should read it.4
Since my partner and I moved to L.A. fifteen years ago, and especially over the last four years, I’ve gotten rid of 95% of our 2,000+ physical books, but one of the few books I made sure to keep is my first copy of Natural History of the Senses. I love re-reading it, and not only because it contains the marginalia of former lovers who also read it at my nudging. (I think of that particular copy as a magic totem devoted to living a full and sensuist life.)
If the sensual vices are a proxy for this, it should be a wake-up call that fewer people in the U.S. today are smoking, drinking, doing drugs, or having sex than at any point since these consumption and behavioral trends have been tracked.
As Confucius taught: “To love something is good. To really know it is even better. But to savor it is the best of all.”
If you happen to be among the majority of Americans who don’t or can’t read books, PBS NOVA did a pretty good five-part documentary TV series in the 1990s using The Natural History of the Senses as inspiration, and you can illicitly watch the episodes featuring Diane Ackerman here.
“...as opposed to “sensualism,” which is just about gratifying sexual desire”; well, I wouldn’t say ‘just’... anyway, nice review-will check out.
Interesting essay and has me pondering. I have read ANHOTS it but will now try to find it and read it again. I see Massimo Pigliucci subscribes to your blog (he’s a very inspirational writer and person) and recall that he said that on moving to NY he had culled his library too. I think it’s a great idea as well as a prompt to pass on books that you’ve liked while you’re still able to recommend or at least “target” them towards new readers. As my kids tease me (at least I hope they are teasing), “It’ll all be going in the skip otherwise, Dad!”