Touch
  • Published: 18 April 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241184066
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $32.00

Touch

Formats & editions
EBook
29 Jan 2015
Paperback
18 Apr 2016
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If you could only have the use of one of your senses, why should you choose touch?

Why does holding a hot drink make us like people more? How can a soldier under fire not even notice he's been shot? What makes sex so much fun?

Touch is the most important sense we have. Without it, we cannot entirely feel pleasure or pain - we are less than human. In fact, as David Linden demonstrates in the astonishing stories gathered here, touch is central to who we are - from choosing our partners to comforting us on our deathbeds. Exploring the many surprising facts and myths about our sense of touch, Linden reveals how it defines us - and how, by understanding it, we can better know ourselves.
  • Published: 18 April 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241184066
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 272
  • RRP: $32.00
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Praise for Touch

Illuminating. Drawing on a wide range of cutting-edge scientific research, Linden provides plenty of insights into how our sense of touch shapes our experience of the world and our idea of self

Sunday Times

This book is excellent. It tells you why footballers hug each other when a goal is scored, and why there are vampire bats. Linden is very good and clear on the raw neurology

Spectator

Absorbing. The bizarre vagaries of touch affect us all, [and] all this is backed up with a good deal of hard neuroscience. Following Linden's thread is worth it

The Times

Most of us take the tactile senses for granted. You won't after reading this book. The best science writers infect you with their fascination for the subject - that's exactly what Linden achieves here

BBC Focus

A treasure trove for anyone wanting to decode the frisson of a lover's caress

Playboy

Will make you think more deeply about every itch, scrape and caress

Washington Post

Fascinating. This book has changed my life

Salley Vickers, Observer

A touching story? A tactless comment? So elemental is the sense of touch that it permeates metaphors we live by. Linden explores the 'weird, complex, and often counter-intuitive' tactile system and its intimate impact on the human experience

Nature