On looking

eleven walks with expert eyes

Plot

Alexandra Horowitz's brilliant On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes shows us how to see the spectacle of the ordinary -- to practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put it, "the observation of trifles." It is structured around a series of eleven walks the author takes with experts on a diverse range of subjects, including an urban sociologist, a well-known artist, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer. She also walks with a child and a dog to see the world as they perceive it. What they see, and how they see it, reveals the startling power of human attention and the cognitive aspects of what it means to be an expert observer.Alexandra Horowitz is charmingly adept at explaining the mysteries of human perception as she discovers a feast of fascinating detail, all explained with her generous humor and self-deprecating tone. On Looking confirms Alexandra Horowitz's place as one of today's most illuminating observers of our infinitely complex world.