Books like For the Benefit of Those Who See — picked by fans

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.

This was a best-seller and rightly so.

It covers the broad and often astounding range of animal senses and how they perceive and understand the world they inhabit, their umwelt. Consciousness depends on it, for without senses we would have no path toward self-awareness. While not the same as consciousness, self-awareness is its most important feature.

Dogs and smell, whales and echolocation, bees and ultraviolet light, sharks and electric fields, all shape how differently animals experience their worlds. Knowing this expands our own understanding and appreciation of the one we inhabit. At the same time, it is humbling to acknowledge how the creatures we share the planet with have such different perceptions. In that is great responsibility.

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.

This novel oscillates between pre-independent times in India and the present. It is about Gowri, Lucy, and James, the terrible sacrifices they make, and how they affect their families in the present. I love Renita D’Silva’s descriptions of Indian culture and food, and the powerful emotions her stories trigger in me. A Daughter’s Courage is my favorite book of hers. The sacrifices and dialogues wrenched my heart, the revelation of family secrets astonished me, and the skilled narrative bound me from start to finish. A masterpiece.

Those who know the field of religious violence may find my choice of Ashis Nandy’s book of essays to be a peculiar one since it deals with a variety of issues besides religious violence. But one of his essays, “The Discrete Charms of Indian Terrorists,” is worth the price of the book. In it, Nandy describes the remarkably civil behavior of young Sikh activists who hijacked an Indian plane in the 1980s. He then goes on to disagree with Gandhi that terrorism necessarily absolutizes a conflict, and he rejects the common perspective, especially in the West, that terrorism is always evil. Though Nandy’s analysis does not fit all, or perhaps most, instances of religion-related terrorism it makes us reconsider our assumptions about the use of violence in certain situations.

This great Hindi novel evokes the vast placid plains of North India, and the social and psychological violence that lies so close to the surface in the lives of the poor. It is the story of Hori Ram, to whom a neighbour gifts a cow, which his estranged brother poisons, thereby deepening the already impoverished family’s misery beneath the humiliations of caste and poverty, and it provided me with insights into the lives of poor people in India which volumes of academic work on poverty failed to do.

This is ostensibly a travel book, a journey of discovery for VS Naipaul, a product of the Indian diaspora deeply imbued with Western Anglo values. It's also reportage, essay, and passionate horror-filled screed. It's not a fair or objective portrait of his homeland, but it is brilliantly observed and profoundly argued.