My college’s Photography 101 class had an unusual required text in Diane Ackerman’s 1991 A Natural History of the Senses. Ackerman is a science essayist and poet, who introduced me to the concept of synesthesia (“a subjective sensation or image of a sense (as of color) other than the one (as of sound) being stimulated,” says Webster’s). Through Senses, I learned trivia like the fact that violet gives off the most elusive fragrance—you have to wait a moment before your brain can process the smell twice—and for an aspiring 19-year-old artist, that’s the stuff of high romance! Ackerman delves into the world’s details and imbues them with even more color and meaning. Giving a talk hosted by Seattle Arts & Lectures tonight, Ackerman will likely discus her latest work of non-fiction, The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story, which describes a battered Polish zoo and its keepers, who secretly housed hundreds of Jews during WWII.

Mon., Nov. 19, 7:30 p.m., 2007