Books like For the Benefit of Those Who See

This is THE book to read on the senses, so I’m stating the obvious here. But let me tell you why it must be at the top of my list. Diane Ackerman takes us through a series of sensuous experiences, from extreme cold to a delicious massage to a thought-provoking meal.

But what’s remarkable is that because she’s a poet, her words pull you out of your mind and into your eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin cells. Here’s just one line. “Words are small shapes in the gorgeous chaos of the world. But they are shapes; they bring the world into focus, corral ideas, hone thoughts, paint watercolors of perception.” Like it? This book is full of them, and they left me tingling.

Luca Turin, a biophysicist and writer, is obsessed with smell. You know those poetic-seeming, almost made-up descriptors we see in wine marketing? Well, that’s how he talks about smells. Turin also wants to figure out how we smell, which we still don’t know the answer to. Ultimately, by delving into some past research and building on it, he finds some answers, though they’re still not widely embraced.

Burr shares Turin’s story about the complexities of navigating the world of sensory science, especially as a passionate iconoclast. It also left me thinking about the art and science of sensing and about who has more expertise–the seasoned perfumer who can detect the fine notes within a glass bottle or the research scientist trying to describe the smell in a purely factual, scientific way.

We already know that most species possess the same five senses we do, but use them in different ways.

But did you know that animals have other, completely different senses, ones that detect odors, heat, sound, electricity, pressure, tastes, and the Earth’s magnetic field in ways we physically can’t?

I found it hard to finish this book because every time I read something astonishing—that hammerhead sharks sense the electrical fields of prey, that monarchs taste with their feet, that octopus arms think and act independently, that dolphin sonar can see inside bodies—I had to stop and wonder WTF that must be like. 

This is my curveball selection because it’s fiction. It’s a dystopian book about our disconnection from our sense of touch, and it so well highlights our fears about technology cutting us off from true experiences. It tells the story of Sloan, who works at a company whose consumers prefer virtual relationships and whose partner believes in something called “post-sexual sex.” 

But she slowly realizes that people, including herself, are feeling deprived, and she goes on a journey to fight for connection. If I had a criticism of this book as fiction only, I’d say it feels very obviously topical in a way that sometimes detracts from the narrative. But as a treatise on the value of touch, it delivers entirely.

I was captivated by Indra Nooyi’s blend of fierce intellect and deep humanity. I couldn’t stop reflecting on how she navigated leadership without compromising authenticity or family.

Her story reminded me that grace and grit must coexist and that decisive leadership doesn’t require shedding your values at the boardroom door.

These lectures were delivered by Montessori during the first teacher training course given in London after she returned from forced exile in India as an Italian national during WWII. I received lectures based on them during my own Montessori course in London, but not until 2012 were they organized and edited by my good friend Annette Haines, and published as a book. Montessori’s granddaughter Renilde Montessori wrote the foreword. The lectures speak to many aspects of Montessori valuable today such as: education based on psychology rather than a fixed curriculum, education from birth, unlocking intelligence, social development, education for independence, solving social problems through education, when to give children the truth and when fairy tales are appropriate, and the difference between work and play.

I love Rumer Godden’s novels, but I’m even fonder of her memoirs, especially this one. Writing with her sister, Jon, she describes life in Naryangang (then in British India, now in Bangla Desh) during and shortly after World War 1. The large household, the bazaar, the diversity of people, the bright sun and the monsoon rains, the wealth and the poverty, the danger of rabid dogs, the holidays in hill stations…I grew up in India forty years after Jon and Rumer Godden, but in many ways, their experiences bring back my own childhood.

I absolutely adore stories where a seemingly innocuous vacation turns on its heels into a gripping, out-of-this-world adventure. And this book is exactly that! When Ash (Ashoka) Mistry, an Indian mythology geek who lives in England, visits his aunt and uncle in Varanasi, the holy city of the Ganges in India, strange occurrences begin to happen, and Ash discovers that heroes and monsters of Indian myths have come back to life. Top that up with one character wanting to bring back Ravana, the demon king with ten heads and the ultimate essence of evil, and you have an adventure that’s got you at the edge of your seat!

Gigi Pandian has gone on to write several series I adore, including the Secret Staircase and Accidental Alchemist mysteries, but her first series about history professor Jaya Jones remains my favorite.

A bejeweled and mysterious artifact sends her globe-trotting, and I, for one, enjoyed the ride every step of the way. Jaya is smart and confident, and I would want to hang out with her and her friends any day of the week—especially that roguish possible art thief she encounters. 

M.M Kaye was best known for her blockbuster The Far Pavilions. This beautifully written book, however, is a first volume of memoir—another record of a European child in India. Having travelled there a lot myself and had a family relative close to me in age grew up in the tea gardens there, I have long wondered what that experience was like, quite apart from the politics of whether we should have been there or not. Kaye’s childhood eye describes her upbringing in Shimla in the Himalayan foothills as well as Delhi, before her inevitable banishment to cold England. The book has a sunlit feel to it and it full of vivid detail and fond memories of this childhood caught between two worlds.