Discover new selections
Buy new:
-45% $13.79
FREE delivery Thursday, April 24 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$13.79 with 45 percent savings
List Price: $25.00
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
FREE delivery Thursday, April 24 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Or Prime members get FREE delivery Tuesday, April 22.
In Stock
$$13.79 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$13.79
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Read full return policy
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$8.76
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime FREE Returns
Book is in good condition and may include underlining highlighting and minimal wear. The book can also include From the library of labels. May not contain miscellaneous items toys dvds etc. . We offer 100% money back guarantee and 24 7 customer service. Free 2-day shipping with Amazon Prime! Book is in good condition and may include underlining highlighting and minimal wear. The book can also include From the library of labels. May not contain miscellaneous items toys dvds etc. . We offer 100% money back guarantee and 24 7 customer service. Free 2-day shipping with Amazon Prime! See less
FREE delivery Thursday, April 24 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35. Order within 7 hrs 54 mins
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$13.79 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$13.79
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Siri Hustvedt
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays Paperback – June 5, 2012

by Siri Hustvedt (Author)
4.3 out of 5 stars 82 ratings
{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$13.79","priceAmount":13.79,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"13","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"79","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"KK%2FvF7S9Lm2a55C%2FiWubKWbNuBLIb7DIheusA9t6GOBnel5ToL%2FduCj4CP5OuDH%2BlAKGt1xRm%2FWX2Oe%2FObnWmUX4nPKIplhA4eo%2Bu6uJaT%2FNuaiJWscQzYmjkJyZVxWgQenWXbHZfm63o3Y4DOyFZw%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$8.76","priceAmount":8.76,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"8","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"76","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"KK%2FvF7S9Lm2a55C%2FiWubKWbNuBLIb7DIKg9z%2FBLE9x9U37LjFIdW8dRmAiMfUCUM3RF1Cqe3RdsKsLzFpFobqf90q1ctDS7vWhkbPmVK9qCGLG8SA1zZfeezlILWjs%2F7HOQnNBjSI9ZEtejZHvGRKL5%2FYVLGuvQgTn8ssQpQPDc1hsAY21%2Fv1uUMzhhkWyo4","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

The internationally acclaimed novelist Siri Hustvedt has also produced a growing body of nonfiction. She has published a book of essays on painting (Mysteries of the Rectangle) as well as an interdisciplinary investigation of a neurological disorder (The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves). She has given lectures on artists and theories of art at the Prado, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 2011, she delivered the thirty-ninth annual Freud Lecture in Vienna. Living, Thinking, Looking brings together thirty-two essays written between 2006 and 2011, in which the author culls insights from philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, psychoanalysis, and literature.

The book is divided into three sections: the essays in Living draw directly from Hustvedt's life; those in Thinking explore memory, emotion, and the imagination; and the pieces in Looking are about visual art. And yet, the same questions recur throughout the collection. How do we see, remember, and feel? How do we interact with other people? What does it mean to sleep, dream, and speak? What is "the self"? Hustvedt's unique synthesis of knowledge from many fields reinvigorates the much-needed dialogue between the humanities and the sciences as it deepens our understanding of an age-old riddle: What does it mean to be human?

Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    400 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Picador
  4. Publication date
    June 5, 2012
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.89 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9781250009524
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1250009524
Next slide of product details
Books%20with%20Buzz
Books with Buzz
Discover the latest buzz-worthy books, from mysteries and romance to humor and nonfiction. Explore more

Frequently bought together

Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays
This item: Living, Thinking, Looking: Essays
$13.79
Get it as soon as Thursday, Apr 24
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essays on Art, Sex, and the Mind
$18.50
Get it as soon as Thursday, Apr 24
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
What I Loved: A Novel
$11.25
Get it Apr 29 - 30
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
Ships from and sold by YourOnlineBookstore.
Total price: $00
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
Some of these items ship sooner than the others.
Show details Hide details
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“No one writing about art today comes closer than Siri Hustvedt to the elusive strangeness of a great painting.” ―Calvin Tomkins

“As an essayist she is perhaps without peer.” ―The Scotland Herald

“She brings both knowledge and an artist's insight to the discussion of memory, language, and personal identity. . . . It is Hustvedt's gift to write with exemplary clarity of what is by necessity unclear.” ―Hilary Mantel

“[Hustvedt] gives you the illusion of seeing as if for the first time works of art that you thought you knew well. After reading her . . . most prose about art seems merely perfunctory.” ―Modern Painters

“Hustvedt thinks her way through complex subject matter with the effortless clarity of a poised and skeptical outsider who has little time for nonsense or the blithe reductionist certainties of supposed experts. . . . Hustvedt is a calm traveler on the storm-tossed seas of the self. Her odyssey . . . deepens understanding.” ―Lisa Appignanesi

About the Author

Siri Hustvedt was born in 1955 in Northfield, Minnesota. She has a Ph.D. from Columbia University in English literature and is the internationally acclaimed author of several novels, The Sorrows of an American, What I Loved, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, The Blindfold, and The Summer Without Men, as well as a growing body of nonfiction, including Living, Thinking, Looking, A Plea for Eros,and Mysteries of the Rectangle,and an interdisciplinary investigation of the body and mind in The Shaking Woman or A History of My Nerves. She has given lectures on artists and theories of art at the Prado, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. In 2011, she delivered the thirty-ninth annual Freud Lecture in Vienna. She lives in Brooklyn.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1250009529
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Picador (June 5, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781250009524
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250009524
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.89 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 82 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Siri Hustvedt

Siri Hustvedt

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Siri Hustvedt's first novel, The Blindfold, was published by Sceptre in 1993. Since then she has published The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, What I Loved, The Sorrows of an American, The Summer Without Men and The Blazing World, which was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014. She is also the author of the poetry collection Reading To You, and five collections of essays: Yonder, Mysteries of the Rectangle: Essays on Painting, A Plea for Eros, Living, Thinking, Looking, and A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essays on Art, Sex, and the Mind. She is also the author of The Shaking Woman: A History of My Nerves.

Born in Minnesota, Siri Hustvedt now lives in Brooklyn, New York. She has a PhD in English from Columbia University and in 2012 was awarded the International Gabarron Prize for Thought and Humanities.

www.sirihustvedt.net

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
82 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review

Customers say

Customers find the book well-written and easy to read, with one describing it as the best book of essays ever. They find the author interesting, with one customer noting her Renaissance-like scholarship.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Select to learn more

6 customers mention "Readability"6 positive0 negative

Customers find the book easy to read and eloquent, with one customer describing it as the best book of essays ever.

"Hustvedt is an intelligent writer who does not take shortcuts in explaining her perspective and expanding ours...." Read more

"I have enjoyed reading these essays probably as much as "Mysteries of the Rectangle",which I highly recommend to anyone in the arts...." Read more

"...the human experiences through the lenses of neuroscience, psychology, poetry, and visual art. Stunning!" Read more

"...She is a very interesting woman, a very good writer and I loved her essays." Read more

3 customers mention "Interest"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the author very interesting, with one describing her as a Renaissance woman whose scholarship is noteworthy.

"Siri Hustvedt is a Renaissance woman whose scholarship, intuition, and incredible ability to synthesize allow her to reveal the common themes in..." Read more

"...She is a very interesting woman, a very good writer and I loved her essays." Read more

"The psychological aspects of this book are very interesting and easily read - all very personal but she lacks actual art historical background and..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • JM Barrie
    5.0 out of 5 stars Essays to Savor
    Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Hustvedt is an intelligent writer who does not take shortcuts in explaining her perspective and expanding ours. I rarely highlight items or words in a book, but this one demanded it of me. I talked about memory to everyone I know when reading her essays on it. Now that I have finished the collection, I am re-examining art that I own and art that I remember. I am not likely to read this book again, but I will go back again and again to the highlights. They amaze.
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • es787
    4.0 out of 5 stars Recommended Reading
    Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    I have enjoyed reading these essays probably as much as "Mysteries of the Rectangle",which I highly recommend to anyone in the arts.
    Hustvedt has mastered the art of the essay form, bringing together ideas and viewpoints from disparate disciplines.
    The essay on painter Giorgio Morandi, puts into words things one often is incapable of uttering before
    the impenetrable silence of a Morandi Still Life. Recommended reading.
    7 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • esperanza
    5.0 out of 5 stars Esssays of Amazing Depth and Breadth
    Reviewed in the United States on September 18, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Siri Hustvedt is a Renaissance woman whose scholarship, intuition, and incredible ability to synthesize allow her to reveal the common themes in seemingly disparate fields. Her metacognitive passages enable the reader to follow her thinking to new vistas in understanding the self. Her sentences are as clear and refreshing as mountain water. Siri uses examples from her own life to illustrate the human experiences through the lenses of neuroscience, psychology, poetry, and visual art. Stunning!
    11 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Angeles Lagos
    5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, enlightening
    Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    I had never read anything written by Siri Hustvedt. I was curious when she received the price Princesa de Asturias. She is a very interesting woman, a very good writer and I loved her essays.
    Helpful
     Report
  • Customer x
    4.0 out of 5 stars ... psychological aspects of this book are very interesting and easily read - all very personal but she lacks actual ...
    Reviewed in the United States on October 7, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    The psychological aspects of this book are very interesting and easily read - all very personal but she lacks actual art historical background and at the end of the book this becomes noticeable. Overall a good well-written read.
    Helpful
     Report
  • J. Emma Lazarus
    5.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent and Sane!
    Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    This is the BEST book of essays EVER!!!! I have never read a more apt description of Giorgio Morandi's work to only mention one essay. I've already ordered all that Siri Hustvedt has written.

    Five stars and BRAVO these essays are eloquent and sane.
    6 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • David
    5.0 out of 5 stars 32 Essays to Enrich your Life
    Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2016
    Siri Hustvedt - Living Thinking Looking

    I have enjoyed reading a number of Siri Hustvedt’s novels and non-fiction. I appreciate her interesting, inspiring writing and her intelligence. “Living Thinking Looking”, Hustvedt’s collection of 32 essays is, in my view, one of the best series of essays I have read.

    In summary, “Living” are essays that are reflections of the authors own life. Hustvedt writes about her desires, parents, feelings, her migraines, wild thoughts and sleep/sleeplessness.

    The “Thinking” essays cover topics such as memory, emotion, human nature, time, remembrance, perception, and imagination.

    “Looking” are essays about visual art. In this section Hustvedt enriched my knowledge of artists such as Vermeer, Goya, Pollack and Kosuth. And the author introduced me to the art of Bourgeois, Kiki Smith, and Darger. Reading these essays has encouraged me to explore/research these artists (and others) more thoroughly. The last chapter in this section, “Embodied Visions: What Does it Mean to Look at a Work of Art?” was particularly inspiring.

    Throughout these 32 essays Siri Hustvedt is inviting us to consider how do we see, remember and feel? How do we interact with other people? What does it mean to sleep, dream, and speak? What is “the self”? What does it mean to be human?
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Amanda S.
    4.0 out of 5 stars gift
    Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    it was a gift I got for my sister and she loves this author so I hope it was a good book for her, I really wouldn't know much.
    One person found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
  • France
    3.0 out of 5 stars Intéressant aber nicht wirklich erhellend
    Reviewed in Germany on July 31, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Betrachtungen, die zehn Jahre und mehr zurück liegen. Nicht wirklich thought-provoking. Viele Aussagen zu Freud heute nicht mehr so haltbar, da andere Facetten und Modelle hinzugekommen sind. Der gegenwärtige Blick ist durch wirklich existenzielle Fragen geschärft und erfordert eine stringentere Begrifflichkeit.
    Report
  • Carol F. C. Rose
    5.0 out of 5 stars Clearness
    Reviewed in France on April 11, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    With a academic clinical and personal clinical background in psychology and psychoanalysis acquired with some difficulty because of the profusion of vocabularies involved, this book impressed me by its clarity.
    Report
  • Martello
    5.0 out of 5 stars Articulate. Powerful. Superb.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    I've only read the first chapter and I'm already so grateful for this book that I want to write about it and I want you to read it, too.
    Report
  • Mrs Fran Tulett
    4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 13, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Very interesting thoughts
    Report
  • goldski
    5.0 out of 5 stars Erudite & wide-ranging
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Erudite & wide-ranging book that combines auto-biography with new developments in cognitive science + ways of seeing. Superb.
    Report