Review: Life In Five Senses (ft. some things I've been noticing with my extremely underused senses recently)

My aunt, when I was visiting family over spring break, told me about the release of a new book by one of my favorite authors from high school. (This is one of the many reasons why it is lovely to have family members who also like to read. They have radars for different things than you.) Because I have Zero Chill, I immediately requested an eARC from NetGalley (something I hadn't done in quite a while!) and thus, here I am with a review! (Which, I know, is my first review in forever!)

(The usual spiel...provided with a free copy...not required to give a positive review...etcetera.)

So, I'm sure when I said "one of my favorite authors from high school", you guys were thinking "Megan Whalen Turner! Naomi Novik! Did J. R. R. Tolkien come back from the dead?"

Actually, none of the above. As far as I know, Tolkien is still sleeping calmly in his grave (and hopefully is alive in Heaven). One of my favorite authors in high school who, to my knowledge, I have never mentioned on this blog, was Gretchen Rubin. 

I know what you're all thinking. "I have never heard of this woman in my life. What did she write?"

Well...not fiction, actually. One of my favorite authors in high school was a nonfiction writer who covers the subject of happiness. Gretchen writes about her research on happiness, her experimentation on herself with trying out 'happiness advice' and trying to figure out habits in her life that make her happier, and her general thoughts on happiness. She's really similar to me in many ways, so a lot of things she writes about ring very, very true for me. I found it fascinating in high school, and I still do. You'll likely get a post on that in not too long, so that's a story for another day...but let's just say that after reading her new book, I went back and reread most of her old ones. Rereading was surprising to me, because I didn't realize how much of her thought I had absorbed in high school, and how much I still think about her books. But again, all this is a story for another day. 

Perhaps, though, with that background, it might make sense to you why I was so excited about her new book release! 

And Life In Five Senses did not disappoint! One of the things I love about Gretchen Rubin's books is that she writes about herself and her own experiences, so that it doesn't feel like most nonfiction about, say, happiness, or the five senses, but more like a memoir.

However, her personal MO for exploring any of those things is a methodical self-research and experimentation method, so it does feel like a methodical memoir. If that makes any sense. And that makes it easy to apply the things that she talks about to one's own life. 
It's one of my favorite things about her works--how methodical and yet personal and entertaining they are. 
That carries through to this book, as well, where she goes sense by sense, and tells us about her experiments with each of the senses, and yet, each chapter is still a story, or multiple. And it's super engaging!

(A note--throughout this review, I'm going to call her Gretchen, because I feel like I've known her work for too long to use the impersonal 'Rubin'. Not sure if that's impertinent or not, but here we are.)

Okay, but on to the actual theme of the book: Gretchen realized that despite all of her attempts to build happiness through virtue--and she did acquire those virtuous habits--she was living too much in her head, and not enough in the real world. And that's why she decided to explore her five senses, to try to ground herself more in the real world. The more I think about this, after reading her book, the more that I realize that I am in the EXACT same boat, and this may possibly be the most relatable book I've read all year. So: it came at a good time, because I also spend way too much time in my head, and not enough in the real world. (The only difference between us in that regard is that I'm not yet convinced that's a bad thing... XD)

Side note to the paragraph above: I know she never says the word 'virtue' in any of her books (or at least, I don't recall her doing so), but that's really what her happiness and habits books are about, translated to a Christian perspective--applied virtue. Going to bed on time? Applied prudence and temperance. Giving loving welcomes and farewells? Applied charity. And so on. And that's why those things bring happiness--because virtue is conducive to the Good Life, which is the happy life. (Ha. Little Aristotle reference slid in there for ya. You're welcome.) Also, because virtue is just the habit of doing good. QED.

Anyways. 

The book is organized by sense, starting with Seeing and ending with Touching. Each chapter is subdivided into the different exercises she did with each sense, some of which are similar, and some very different. In each category, there were things that I thought I might like to try--looking for what's overlooked (I love doing this, when I make mental space for it), attending a concert AND turning up the silence (as Gretchen would say, "the opposite of a splendid truth is also true"), capturing scent memories, paying attention to ordinary tastes, and reaching to touch for comfort. 

As a side note--Gretchen hypothesizes that each person has a 'neglected sense'--one that they pay even less attention to than the others. Her neglected sense is taste (which, to be quite frank, shows up in the book--I didn't think the chapter on taste was as compelling as the others...but it wasn't boring or anything), and she created a quiz for others to take to figure out their neglected sense. You can find it HERE. According to the quiz, my neglected sense is touch. This makes a lot of sense for me, and a lot of her suggestions and experiments for using touch are things I'd like to try at some point. 
(I wish she also had a quiz for the sense one relies on most, i.e. the opposite of neglected sense, but oh well. One can't have everything.)

One thing that's included in every chapter is her experiences with her decision to go to the MET every day. This was something she decided to do in order to give her an experience every single day that required her to get out of her head and pay attention to what was going on around her. And it's fascinating to hear what started to jump out at her about each of the senses by visiting the MET every single day. 

It also inspired me to start visiting a place every day (as she encourages)--the main library at my university. It's an absolutely enormous building, and I had only explored a small part of it (arguably, I've still only explored a small part of it, because my forays into the stacks, while frequent, have not been comprehensive) but now I've started to build a mental map of each floor, and figure out which of the side libraries I like best, which I can go to when I'm feeling sad (the Social Sciences library has an inexplicably large collection of MG and YA, including most of my childhood favorites, which is an excellent lifehack for a bad day), and so on. I've discovered an ox yoke allegedly made by Lincoln, a clock that belonged to Gregor Mendel, and a bat. It's a great time, even if it perhaps doesn't involve quite as many sensory stimuli as the MET. 10/10 would recommend. 

The last chapter of the book talks about combinations of the senses, and the things that might happen in one's life if one starts to pay more attention to one's senses. One thing she recommends is doing a sense profile of a particular time in one's life, and I thought it would be a fun way to round out the post for me to do a quick sense profile of this past month or so, with some of the most memorable sights, sounds, sensations, tastes, and smells, to try to get myself out of my head a bit. (I had so much trouble thinking up things to list for touch, you guys. The neglected sense thing is on point. XD)

Sight:
The way the deciduous trees here look while they're leafing out--the haze of green around the bare branches.
The beauty of old brick buildings surrounded by flowering fruit trees. 

Hearing: 
"If ye love me", the motet by Tallis, which is always stuck in my head for days after we sing it for Mass.
The Beauty & the Beast soundtrack, which I've been listening to excessively. 

Touch:
The bronze statue in the library that I ran my fingers along during one of my library trips this week.
My knitting--my constant companion while watching lectures of either the online or in-person variety.

Taste:
Oyster crackers, because that's all I was eating in studio while working on all of my final projects. (I literally had a whole box of the little packets you get at, say, Skyline Chili, and I went through almost all of them.)
Cadbury Mini Eggs (I got so many for Easter--I just finished them all this week.)

Smell:
The apple blossom smell outside my studio building that would envelop me every time I stepped out the door. 
The tart-sour-rotten smell of alcoholic vomit in the stairwell I use most often in my dorm. (I didn't say it was pleasant. But it is memorable.)

Overall: This was a really interesting book, with many good insights, and I really enjoyed read it! I think it lives up to her previous books, for sure. I'd rate this book four stars, and definitely recommend it if you're interested in general nonfiction, memoirs, or the five senses!

Who's your favorite nonfiction author? Have you read anything by Gretchen Rubin? Do you have an idea of what your neglected sense might be? I'm very curious!