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Title: The Face by Dan McNeill, Daniel McNeill ISBN: 0-316-58803-2 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: October, 1998 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Fascinating Read
Comment: Dan McNeill does a very thorough job in discussing the face. From evolution, culture, physiology, and psychology. I was very impressed with the amount of research he went through, who knew the ear alone had such a long and rich history?
The two aspects of the book I found most interesting were the evolutionary background of each feature of the face from the obvious (ie. the mouth) to the not so obvious (ie. the eyebrow) and his own philisophical meanderings into the standards of beauty.
He also discusses facial expressions, differences in facial structure among different races, comparisons to other species, facial augmentation including piercings and plastic surgery, as well as a brief and not too complicated study in anatomy.
My only caution is that I hoped that there would be more illustrations to accompany some of his text, but McNeill is a lively author and this is definately a good nonfiction read. I can't stress his thoroughness enough so that there's something in there for everyone, from the hardcore scientist to the curious layperson.
Rating: 5
Summary: finally I know a fun fact about the pineal gland
Comment: Everything the amazon.com review says up there is true. A well-written, well-rounded, fascinating, funny and sometimes poetic book-- but also big fun for science-heads like me! It is so lovely when books can draw from biological, evolutionary, historical, psychological, sociological, literary and cultural perspectives at the same time (and more, I just got tired of listing ologies). The antidote to the other kind of specialised learning.
Rating: 5
Summary: A LENS FOR MONNALISA
Comment: How many things can be said about our faces and from how many points of view!
Apart from the deep interest of the topic itself, in the richness of the aspects addressed, the book is wonderfully written and this alone makes it worth reading. McNeill has the rare gift of an enjoyable, entertaining expression which translates into a fluent and brilliant narrative. There have been many pages where, like in a conjurer's trick, the author sprang up from the printed words and took shape at my side as a sort of domestic conteur, accompanying me while slowly walking around my kitchen's table where I use to read books in a slow, tacit peripatetic rite, away from the TV set and the PC. Since my childhood's years I have been almost totally incapable to read without moving: the phenomenon started with a rhythmic oscillation of the legs and went further through successive stages of mild agitation, until it peacefully settled into a stable circular - I dare say, mandalic - form of ambulation: maybe this quality of mine as a reader can be deciphered in some trait of my face, let's say, the way I laugh or the way I look at people when I speak close in front of them.
Who knows which mysterious relationships our inner world establishes with our faces and in which way they tend to show externally, when perceived by the others!
McNeill takes you in the heart of this constant link between souls and faces, between life and facial expression and appearance. But, although the book never descends to the level of an arid exposition of facts and findings, don't believe its content escapes the filter of a rigorous scientific approach.
On the contrary, each assertion, while light and elegant in its wording, rests upon a solid background of careful observation and experiment. Few books are so poetically taxonomic, only that definition and category disappear from view disguised in a masterful reporting. You pass from a detailed examination of facial muscles (now I know which one to blame for my forehead wrinkles: the corrugator!) to the typical clues which may give you away as a lying hypocrite. Anecdotally overabundant the book gets you acquainted with lots of characters and ideas picked up from a vast segment of the history of thought. Psychology, neurology, physiognomy, social behaviour and cultural traditions are all deeply searched in order to extract meaning out of faces. But perhaps the most important lesson you are taught is that when you cope with faces - of course starting with your own - you should be quite careful not to take all at its face value.
So my advice is: read this beautiful book, then watch yourself straight in the eyes in front of a mirror and honestly tell me if you really see the same person as before.
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Title: Survival of the Prettiest : The Science of Beauty by Nancy Etcoff ISBN: 0385479425 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 11 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Human Face by Brian Bates, John Cleese, British Broadcasting Corporation ISBN: 0789478366 Publisher: DK Publishing Pub. Date: 01 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: In the Eye of the Beholder: The Science of Face Perception by Vicki Bruce, Andy Young, Andrew W. Young ISBN: 0198524404 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: December, 1998 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title:The Human Face ASIN: B00005LC1B Publisher: Warner Home Video Pub. Date: 28 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.98 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $26.98 |
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Title: Reading Faces: Window to the Soul? (New Directions in Social Psychology) by Leslie A. Zebrowitz ISBN: 0813327474 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: June, 1997 List Price(USD): $31.00 |
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