Reading Group to discuss On Looking: A Walker's Guide to the Art of Observation by Alexandra Horowitz
In-Person
Sunday, July 30, 2023
4:30pm - 6:00pm Pacific
San Francisco location emailed to registrants two days before meeting.
HCSF Members: Free, but RSVP required
Non-Members: $10
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On Looking: A Walker's Guide to the Art of Observation (paperback edition)
On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes (hardcover edition)
Alexandra Horowitz 308 pages 2013
Horowitz teaches psychology, animal behavior, and canine cognition at Barnard/Columbia, and has authored several bestselling books about dogs. Here, her aim is to
show humans how to see the spectacle of the ordinary––to practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put it, "the observation of trifles." On Looking is structured around a series of eleven walks, mostly in her Manhattan neighborhood, with experts in a diverse range of subjects, including an urban sociologist, an entomologist, an artist, a geologist, a physician, and a sound designer. 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. (publisher)
"Since reading it nine years ago, this book has sneakily informed my walks throughout SF and every other city I visit. If you connect with the observations of even one of Horowitz's expert companions, this will have been worth your while.” (An HCSF Reading Group regular)
Meeting organizer:
Kirsten Miclau
readinggroup@harvardclubsf.org