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On Looking

Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes

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On Looking

By: Alexandra Horowitz
Narrated by: Alexandra Horowitz
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About this listen

 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 Horowitzshows 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. Anthropology Consciousness & Thought Philosophy Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science Social Sciences Witty
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I was really keen to listen to this as I had read the author's book about understanding dogs. I had also seen this book referred to as one of the top ten books that should be read. The first three accounts of walks were interesting and then it became too samey. The author's voice is monotonous too and that doesn't help. I tried to return the book but the system wouldn't let me and said I had to ring audible customer service. As I didn't want to spend ages on the phone possibly justifying why I didn't like it , I decided to plod through to the end. And that's all it is now, a plod. I'm sorry, I tried.

I tried!

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fascinating,this has opened all my senses to exciting new adventures & learning new skills

seeing anew

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I really enjoyed this book. I’m someone who has always enjoyed walking though I prefer doing so in nature’s woods and fields of the countryside near my home.
I found listening to the various perspectives fascinating until she described her walk with her blind friend… in this section as a blind person I felt the author had missed an opportunity as she wittered on with her perception of how her friend was interpreting her surroundings… a few questions and her friend could have described more eloquently and instead of a sighted person’s skewed guesses there would have been an accurate explanation of how the cane produces information.
It sounded from the description that her friend was shorelining using the tapping method (I have a bit of blurry sight left and often shoreline using the constant contact method using a rolling tip).
Of course seeing that the description of that walk was faulty has me wondering what other projections were made about her other walking partners.
I will return to this book another time simply because I enjoyed the descriptions of walking the cityscape… and really enjoyed the different perspectives of each of her “guides”

Fascinating

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Mildly interesting but didn’t tell me much new. Would much rather have heard how other people see the city - homeless, police , graffiti artist, environmental activist etc. she is weirdly uninterested in people and doesn’t even say much about dogs!

Missed opportunities

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The book does what it promises and will give you an extended perspective on what to pay attention to. Unfortunately, the performance is very, very dull. I had to listen on 1.2x to finish it. Horowitz is a good writer but this audiobook could really benefit from a professional narrator.

Interesting, but dully read

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