I have found coffee, or in fact just about any aspect of it, from pour-over to espresso, to be endlessly challenging and rewarding. My first visit to coffee farms was in 2004, to Ethiopia and Kenya. Since then I’ve been to dozens of farms in nine or ten countries. There is something about coffee people; they are wondrously generous about sharing their expertise, if they think you care and if you know the right questions to ask. Before going deeply into coffee, I was a professor of history, and I've continued to publish on topics as diverse as Stalin, the witch hunts in Europe and North America, and the body in the Anglosphere, 1880-1920.
Coffee, sex, travel, exotic locales, romance, and at long last love. This novel has it all, made vivid through the story of a more or less ordinary Englishman in the late 1890s who finds that he has a remarkable talent for discovering and describing the flavors and the problems in brewed coffee. He goes to Ethiopia to learn more about coffee. There his adventures become, shall we say, quite vivid, and some remarkable twists appear. Nicely written by an international best-selling author. Used copies are really cheap. You will have fun reading this with a great cup of coffee.
It is 1895. Robert Wallis, would-be poet, bohemian and impoverished dandy, accepts a commission from coffee merchant Samuel Pinker to categorise the different tastes of coffee - and encounters Pinker's free-thinking daughters, Philomenia, Ada and Emily. As romance blossoms with Emily, Robert realises that the muse and marriage may not be incompatible after all.
Sent to Abyssinia to make his fortune in the coffee trade, he becomes obsessed with slave girl, Fikre. He decides to use the money he has saved to buy her from her owner - a decision that will change not only his own life, but the…
I am an award-winning author of picture books and early readers. I have set my stories in many kinds of locations, including a haunted house, an Eastern European shtetl, an English Renaissance village, and a working cattle ranch. ForWake Up, City, I turned to the setting I know best, the city. I drew on memories of walking to kindergarten in early morning Brooklyn. This book is my love song to cities everywhere. As a lifelong city dweller, I worry about the impact of urban spread on the planet, but I feel hopeful, too, because many cities are becoming more nature and wildlife-friendly. The books I'm excited to share celebrate city wildlife.
Told in lyrical language, two children wander through their city, looking for “wild” and finding it in motion, size, sounds, touch, and smell.“It leaps and pounces and shows its teeth.” The words dance around, hinting at flora and fauna, using adjectives and verbs to suggest and evoke. This journey arouses awareness of the natural world that lives all around us in the city. Young readers will enjoy guessing what is being hinted at. This is such an original way to talk about the urban wild!
A lovely, lyrical picture book with gorgeous illustrations that explores the ways the wild makes itself known to us and how much closer it is than we think.
There are so many places that wild can exist, if only you know where to look! Can you find it? Two kids set off on an adventure away from their urban home and discover all the beauty of the natural world. From the bark on the trees to the sudden storm that moves across the sky to fire and flowers, and snowflakes and fresh fruit. As the children make their way through…
My passion for ancient history and archaeology began in secondary school when I started learning Latin and we were taken on a field trip to Fishbourne Roman Palace. By the time I started my MA at Bristol, my obsession with ancient Roman housing was well and truly established, and it quickly became clear to me that this was the area that I wanted to study for my PhD. Now as an Associate Professor in Ancient History and Archaeology at Royal Holloway, University of London, I have been very lucky to study and teach a range of areas in ancient history and archaeology, including my beloved area of the Roman domestic realm.
Historian Mark Smith has written widely on the topic of understanding sensory experiences of the past.
At just over 100 pages long, his most recent book is an excellent insight into the field for both those new to it, and those who are already familiar with writing history of the senses.
Starting with an overview of the origins of sensory history and moving through to consider both the strengths and challenges of current research in this area, Smith concludes this book with a clear, accessible, and persuasive argument for future directions of work in the field.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough for anyone interested in exploring sensory history!
A Sensory History Manifesto is a brief and timely meditation on the state of the field. It invites historians who are unfamiliar with sensory history to adopt some of its insights and practices, and it urges current practitioners to think in new ways about writing histories of the senses.
Starting from the premise that the sensorium is a historical formation, Mark M. Smith traces the origins of historical work on the senses long before the emergence of the field now called "sensory history," interrogating, exploring, and in some cases recovering pioneering work on the topic. Smith argues that we are…
As a preschool teacher for 25 years, I observed many children with sensory processing differences (SPD), autism and ADHD. I wondered why they were uncomfortable touching finger paints, why they avoided swings and never let their feet leave the ground, why they broke crayons and tripped on-air, and why they felt inadequate playing and making friends. To help"out-of-sync" children become more competent in work and play, I learned to identify their sensory processing challenges and steer them into early intervention. My mission is to explain to families, teachers, and professionals how SPD affects learning and behavior, to offer practical solutions, and to see all children flourish.
We have more than five senses. The sixth, seventh and eighth are the vestibular sense, the proprioceptive sense, and the interoceptive sense. Interoception allows us to sense our internal organs and experience "gut" feelings including hunger, satiety, thirst, itch, pain, temperature, nausea, the need to urinate and defecate, and sexual arousal. This book provides practical solutions for improving self-regulation, self-awareness and social understanding.
Many people take it for granted, but one of the most important skills we have is being able to understand signals from our body. How you know if you're hungry, thirsty, tired, etc. are key abilities to live a healthy life.
These are also skills that those with autism spectrum disorder tend to lack. Kelly Mahler's newest book gives professionals and parents a new way to consider teaching these talents to individuals with ASD. She describes the clear link between interoception and many important skills such as self-awareness, self-regulation, problem solving, intuition, and many more.
While my daughter isn’t quite old enough to tell me the ins and outs of her favorites, this one is in heavy rotation this summer–the tale of an NYC dog and his owner who escape the heat for an island beach adventure, returning restored. She loves the pictures of taxis, the dog running free on the beach and “going under” (digging in the sand), truly all things dog.
Since we live on an island and spend our days, like this dog, at the beach, much is familiar. She’s mesmerized by the language (today, she kept repeating the line “trains rumble and hum”) and the beautiful, detailed illustrations, especially the lady on the subway eating popcorn.
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authors picked
Hot Dog
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
4,
5,
6, and
7.
What is this book about?
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE 2023 CALDECOTT MEDAL • This glowing and playful picture book features an overheated—and overwhelmed—pup who finds his calm with some sea, sand, and fresh air. Destined to become a classic!
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews • New York Public Library
“An utter joy from beginning to end!” —Sophie Blackall, two-time Caldecott Medal winner
This hot dog has had enough of summer in the city! Enough of sizzling sidewalks, enough of wailing sirens, enough of people's feet right in…
I’m an author, researcher, and historian writing about Tudor women. As a woman myself, I’m naturally interested in what life was like for those who came before me, and I’m very passionate about writing the lesser-known, forgotten women back into the historical narrative of the period. We all know about Henry VIII’s six wives, his sisters, and daughters, but there were other women at the Tudor court whose stories are no less fascinating.
What did Tudor England look, sound, or smell like?
This is an innovative work from Amy Licence, historian of women's lives. Using the five senses, she skilfully plunges readers into sixteenth-century England, letting us see, hear, smell, taste, and (almost) touch the Tudor world like we've never experienced it before.
Traditionally history is cerebral: what did they believe, what did they think, what did they know?
Woodsmoke and Sage is not a traditional book.
Using the five senses, historian Amy Licence presents a new perspective on the material culture of the past, exploring the Tudors' relationship with the fabric of their existence, from the clothes on their backs, the roofs over their heads and the food on their tables, to the wider questions of how they interpreted and presented themselves, and what they believed about life, death and beyond. Take a journey back 500 years and experience the sixteenth century…
As a neurodivergent person myself, I have always been fascinated by the fact that each of us perceives the world in a way that is as unique as our fingerprints. My book was the first book by a synesthete about synesthesia. While writing the book, I interviewed many neuroscientists, synesthetes, and other neurodiverse people. Later, I was invited to contribute a chapter, “Synesthesia and Literature,” to the Oxford Handbook of Synesthesia. I am now a regular contributor to Journey through the SensesOnline Magazine, where you can read interviews with authors whose books spotlight synesthesia and other forms of neurodivergence. I am also the co-founder of the American Synesthesia Association.
I was bowled over by Maureen Seaberg’s book, which brings together recent research that shows our human sensory capacity is much greater than we believed before!
In these days of rising AI, when we are taking a hard look at the limitations of our human capacities, Seaberg’s book shows that we human beings have much amazing sensory potential that remains undeveloped and can know first-hand the blended sensations of synesthesia or out-of-body experiences.
No wonder the book was included in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Next Big Idea Book Club”! I stayed awake an extra two hours one night because I could not put the book down. This book gave me a jolt of wonder about the world and our place within it.
In 2016, scientists proved that humans could see light at the level of a single photon. We are living in historic times when humans may look at the very fabric of the universe in a laboratory setting. Around the world, other recent discoveries about the senses are just as astounding. It turns out we can hear amplitudes smaller than an atom, smell a trillion scents, have a set of taste buds that can discern molecules of fresh water, and can feel through the sense of touch the difference of a single molecule.
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made takes readers through their…
I am the co-author and CEO of The Wonder Weeks. I advise various global players in the field of babies and I'm a sought-after speaker at fairs and in daily exchange with mothers and fathers.
With all this knowledge I know the needs of parents and their children like no other, with my books and apps I stand for power to the parents!
This adorable book about a cheerful duck with a touch of the pages produces an irresistible crinkling sound and a shake reveals gentle rattling. Because of the fabric tabs extending from each page and the soft, fuzzy cover and cloth pages provides a big stimulation for baby fingers and senses.
A feast for baby's senses! The soft, fuzzy cover and cloth pages of the books in the Friends Cloth series feature vibrantly colored animals for baby to identify.
Parents and gift givers will find:
a fun toy for baby
a soft, washable, cloth book
a special gift!
In Duck and Friends, a cheerful duck on the cover opens to reveal a cute cat, slithery snail, and others. A touch of the pages produces an irresistible crinkling sound and a shake reveals gentle rattling. Fabric tabs extending from each page provide more stimulation for little fingers as baby rubs, squeezes, and…
I’m a science writer, and I’m often inspired to explore topics in my daily life. I grew up shying away from being touched, and it wasn’t until I was older that I started to consider why. I was so compelled by this question, and more basic scientific ones such as what the sense of touch even is, that I wrote a whole book about it. Along that journey and beyond, I read about the other senses to see how other authors tackled similar subjects. Each book reminds me that I’m not just a brain floating around but a body full of sensation.
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.
Diane Ackerman's lusciously written grand tour of the realm of the senses includes conversations with an iceberg in Antarctica and a professional nose in New York, along with dissertations on kisses and tattoos, sadistic cuisine and the music played by the planet Earth.
“Delightful . . . gives the reader the richest possible feeling of the worlds the senses take in.” —The New York Times
When I began research on For the Love of Hops about 70 percent of the hops grown worldwide were valued simply for the bitterness they added to beer, but that was about to flip completely. Today, new varieties like Citra and Mosaic are powerful brands, with aromas and flavors that hops never exhibited in the past. That’s why the book begins with a deep dive into how and why we smell and taste what we do, something these books helped me better understand.
In Neurogastronomy, Gordon Shepherd likens smells to human faces, writing that they are easy to recognize but hard to describe. In Flavor, Bob Holmes introduces readers to a small tribe of nomadic hunter-gatherers in Malaysia, the Jahai, who have more than a dozen words to describe smells, none of which relate to the smell of any particular object. Vocabulary, he writes, is something we can learn with little effort. His experiences with chefs, gastronomy experts, and food scientists may inspire readers to find personal vocabularies. In the end, he writes, “What’s important is that coming up with a description forces me to pay attention and paying attention enriches my flavor experience.”
Can you describe how the flavor of halibut differs from that of red snapper? How the taste of a Fuji apple differs from a Spartan? For most of us, this is a difficult task: flavor remains a vague, undeveloped concept that we don't know enough about to describe-or appreciate-fully. In this delightful and compelling exploration of our most neglected sense, veteran science reporter Bob Holmes shows us just how much we're missing.
Considering every angle of flavor from our neurobiology to the science and practice of modern food production, Holmes takes readers on a journey to uncover the broad range…
