A Taste for the Beautiful
The Evolution of Attraction

I enjoyed reading about all the different experiments on animal behavior that he included in this and overall I think I learned a lot, but he tends to talk down to the audience and seems to think his readers can’t remember something he said in the previous chapter lol. But overall this was cool and......more

Thank you for the advanced copy of this book. It's clear that Mr. Ryan knows his subject matter, and there were tons of fascinating stories. However, I kept getting distracted by the constant summarizing. I joked with my partner that I could find the phrase "In the previous chapter" on any page I ope......more

We’ll that was interesting. The author is writing from a naturalistic evolutionary perspective. His thesis is that beautiful attributes evolve in animals because of preexisting preferences. Beauty results in reproduction which furthers survival. It’s a pretty empty and lacking view of beauty—beauty’s......more

Outstanding job by Michael Ryan, evaluating beauty and its perception from a scientific and evolutionary perspective. His narrative is conversational and appealing even to non-scientific professionals. He's made me look at the entire topic a whole lot differently and, sadly enough, exposed the roots......more

A fun an accessible book that argues that beauty is foremost in the brain of the beholder. See my full review at [URL not allowed]......more