On Looking

Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes

De: Alexandra Horowitz

Narrado por: Alexandra Horowitz

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Inside of a Dog and The Year of the Puppy, this “elegant and entertaining” (The Boston Globe) explanation of how humans perceive their environments “does more than open our eyes...opens our hearts and minds, too, gently awakening us to a world—in fact, many worlds—we’ve been missing” (USA TODAY).

Alexandra Horowitz shows us how to see the spectacle of the ordinary—to practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put it, “the observation of trifles.” Structured around a series of eleven walks the author takes, mostly in her Manhattan neighborhood, On Looking features experts on a diverse range of subjects, including an urban sociologist, the well-known artist Maira Kalman, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer. Horowitz also walks with a child and a dog to see the world as they perceive it. What they see, how they see it, and why most of us do not see the same things reveal the startling power of human attention and the cognitive aspects of what it means to be an expert observer.

Page by page, Horowitz shows how much more there is to see—if only we would really look. Trained as a cognitive scientist, she discovers a feast of fascinating detail, all explained with her generous humor and self-deprecating tone. So turn off the phone and other electronic devices and be in the real world—where strangers communicate by geometry as they walk toward one another, where sounds reveal shadows, where posture can display humility, and the underside of a leaf unveils a Lilliputian universe—where, indeed, there are worlds within worlds within worlds.

Mind openning if you take it slow

You may want to listen to this book a few times to really "get it". There is no big moment in the narration, just continual examples of the details that we miss because we only see what we expect to see. The narrator is enjoyable.

Riveting

Beautifully read. A call to unleashing your curiosity in any location, especially ones you have become accustomed to.

A simple concept when you stop to appreciate it.

I loved this book. I was completely immersed it it, and the ideas behind what we attend to have stuck with me. I keep talking about it to friends and family - trying hard to get everyone else to read it. While I did initially want a different reader, the voice and pace grew on me.

Your daily walk will never be the same!

Loved this book so much. listened to it on a few of my daily walks and it was like being gifted with new eyes. always be curious of others perspectives!

Excellent!!

Excellent!
Interesting! Well read! A great enjoyment and addition to my own walks and long drives!

stiff writing and narration, but thought provoking

this book truly is a fantastic idea, and the array of perspectives are contagious. these are topics I adore, and while Alexandra is certainly very observant and intelligent, but I wish she would have exchanged some of her vocabulary for more creative license. I hope she continues to write more and develop a voice that reads and sounds as good as the landscapes she puts herself into..

this was my first audible listen.

this was a really enjoyable first listen. wish in had downloaded sooner! I loved it!

What a Way with Words

I enjoyed every one of her 11 walks and will take my next walk with new eyes (and ears)

Detailed look at new ways to look at things

This is a book about how to observe things you might not observe, and treats the subject with an academic regard that is easy to follow and easy to get into, but also fascinating because she gets experts in different fields to point out the things their very trained eyes and ears notice that people who aren't trained would never see, or couldn't identify correctly. I highly recommend it, you'll undoubtedly learn something.

Lots of description

This book is very descriptive, almost to a fault. I’m the sort of person that gets a bit lost in details. This writer does an excellent job of portraying all five senses of the world as she goes along, but it was a bit too much for me. I wish the expert in each chapter would have wrote their own description of the walk, to really see it through their eyes. But overall, the author is an excellent writer and secured her stand firmly.