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Deep Play
The national bestselling author of A Natural History of the Senses tackles the realm of creativity, by exploring one of the most essential aspects of our the ability to play.
"Deep play" is that more intensified form of play that puts us in a rapturous mood and awakens the most creative, sentient, and joyful aspects of our inner selves. As Diane Ackerman ranges over a panoply of artistic, spiritual, and athletic activities, from spiritual rapture through extreme sports, we gain a greater sense of what it means to be "in the moment" and totally, transcendentally human. Keenly perceived and written with poetic exuberance, Deep Play enlightens us by revealing the manifold ways we can enhance our lives.
"Deep play" is that more intensified form of play that puts us in a rapturous mood and awakens the most creative, sentient, and joyful aspects of our inner selves. As Diane Ackerman ranges over a panoply of artistic, spiritual, and athletic activities, from spiritual rapture through extreme sports, we gain a greater sense of what it means to be "in the moment" and totally, transcendentally human. Keenly perceived and written with poetic exuberance, Deep Play enlightens us by revealing the manifold ways we can enhance our lives.
258 pages, Paperback
First published April 27, 1999
112 people are currently reading
1584 people want to read
About the author
Diane Ackerman
71 books1,106 followersDiane Ackerman has been the finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in addition to many other awards and recognitions for her work, which include the bestsellers The Zookeeper’s Wife and A Natural History of the Senses.
The Zookeeper’s Wife, a little known true story of WWII, became a New York Times bestseller, and received the Orion Book Award, which honored it as, "a groundbreaking work of nonfiction." A movie of The Zookeeper’s Wife, starring Jessica Chastain and Daniel Brühl, releases in theaters March 31st, 2017 from Focus Features.
She lives with her husband Paul West in Ithaca, New York.
The Zookeeper’s Wife, a little known true story of WWII, became a New York Times bestseller, and received the Orion Book Award, which honored it as, "a groundbreaking work of nonfiction." A movie of The Zookeeper’s Wife, starring Jessica Chastain and Daniel Brühl, releases in theaters March 31st, 2017 from Focus Features.
She lives with her husband Paul West in Ithaca, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews
September 15, 2012
It turns out that this book is a perfect companion to Alain de Botton's Religion for Atheists. Ackerman also talks about secular spirituality, but from a slightly different perspective. Her book is more about personal transformation than institutional reorganization and my heart has been filled to bursting with her scintillating prose and illumination of what it means to be human. She believes that a form of play called "deep play" is at the core of human spirituality and she spends this book delving into instances of such play--art, poetry, acts of physical endurance, all the places where humans push their creativity and embodied selves to the limits in order to explicate the meaning of living. This is such a beautiful book that ignites a new passion for the small but overwhelmingly amazing details of every day life. Ackerman makes a trip to the Antarctic to see the Emperor penguins and a bicycle ride through a local forest seem like equally worthy adventures. Her poetic language and deeply wise observations about the world enact the thesis of her book: deep play is a tonic for our atheistic souls, one that is necessary and intrinsically tied to our humanity. I want to read this book over and over again until its message becomes instantly available in my mind.
October 14, 2014
Deep play is really praying. It is finding the holy and sacred in the ordinary. It is using the language formerly used only in religion to describe that transcendent and exhilarating ‘athlete’s high’ or feeling of deepest awe and wonder. I can’t possibly write a satisfactory review of this book, because Diane is the master of language. She is. She knows language inside and out and knows how to write in a way to make you breathless, to make you feel and see what she feels and sees. She is an archeologist, a mystic, a poet, and puzzle solver of human nature as well as a lover of science and how it explains and amplifies what it means to be human. The more time I spend with humans, I love the wonder of nature more. The more time I spend in nature, I love humans more. She knows.
“In later years, on expeditions to extraordinary landscapes, I discovered it is possible to enter the mansions of nature so profoundly that time vibrates in a new way. Moments may sprawl for hours or race by in a panic, split into separate photographic stills presenting themselves one by one, or pile up, or whirl breathlessly like a beautiful tornado. In deep play, one’s sense of time no longer originates within oneself.”
“There is a way of beholding that is a form of prayer.”
“I suppose I try to be a translator of sorts, striving to translate emotion and vision into words, to express the life force of animals and landscapes, to give them voice. I pore over the lustrous details of nature and human nature. How different is this from a monk devoting his life to an illuminated manuscript?”
“There are also natural wonders, sacred because they magnetize people, wrench from them profound feelings of awe and fright. What is sacred goes far beyond the religious.”
“Consciousness is the great poem of matter, whose opposite extreme is a Grand Canyon. In between, matter has odd fits and whims: lymph, feathers, brass. Cactus strikes me as a very odd predicament for matter to get into. But perhaps it is no stranger than a comb of an iris, or the way flowers present their sex organs to the world. There is something about the poignant senselessness of all that rock that reminds us, as nothing else could so dramatically, what a bit of luck we are, what a natural wonder.”
“There would be no canyon as we perceive it-subtle, mazy, unrepeating- without the intricate habits of light. For the canyon traps light, reveals itself in light, rehearses all the ways a thing can be lit.”
“The great lesson from the true mystics, from the Zen monks…is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s back yard…to be looking everywhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.” Maslow
“Deep play arises in such moments of intense enjoyment, focus, control, creativity, timelessness, confidence, volition, lack of self-awareness (hence transcendence) while doing things intrinsically worthwhile, rewarding for their own sake…It feels cleansing because when acting and thinking becomes one, there is no room left for other thoughts.”
“One of the most surprising facts about us human beings is that we seem to require a poetic version of life. It’s not just that some of us enjoy reading or writing poetry, or that many people wax poetic in emotional situations, but that all human beings of all ages in all cultures all over the world automatically tell their story in a poetic way, using the elemental poetry concealed in everyday language.”
“as many have pointed out, poetry is a kind of knowing, a way of looking at the ordinary until it becomes special and the exceptional until it becomes commonplace.”
“ we ask the poet to reassure us by giving us a geometry of living, in which all things add up and cohere, to tell us how things buttress once another, circle round and intermelt.”
“Every truth has geological strata…”
“On the other hand, one can turn bronco riding into drudgery. One can create mildly. One can live at a low flame. Most people do. We’re afraid to look foolish, or feel too extravagantly, or make a mistake, or risk unnecessary pain. One fears intensity. But, given something like death, what does it matter if one looks foolish now and then, or tried too hard, or cares too deeply? A shallow life creates a world as flat as a shadow. In that half-light, the sun never burns, risks recede, safety becomes habit, and individuals have little to teach one another.”
“For those future residents of Earth: may their world still be packed with mysteries. May they still grow giddy on the eve of a great adventure. May they become more responsible to one another and the planet. May they keep their taste for the renegade. May they never lose their sense of innocence and wonder. May they live to chase brash and astonishing dreams. May they return to tell me, if such a thing is possible, so that I can know the answer to a thousand scrupulous puzzles, hear of whole civilizations that bloomed and vanished, learn what travel to other solar systems has revealed, and behold the marvels that arose while I was gone. If that’s not possible, then I will have to make do with the playgrounds of mortality, and hope that at the end of my life I can say, simply, wholeheartedly, that is was grace enough to be born and live.”
“In later years, on expeditions to extraordinary landscapes, I discovered it is possible to enter the mansions of nature so profoundly that time vibrates in a new way. Moments may sprawl for hours or race by in a panic, split into separate photographic stills presenting themselves one by one, or pile up, or whirl breathlessly like a beautiful tornado. In deep play, one’s sense of time no longer originates within oneself.”
“There is a way of beholding that is a form of prayer.”
“I suppose I try to be a translator of sorts, striving to translate emotion and vision into words, to express the life force of animals and landscapes, to give them voice. I pore over the lustrous details of nature and human nature. How different is this from a monk devoting his life to an illuminated manuscript?”
“There are also natural wonders, sacred because they magnetize people, wrench from them profound feelings of awe and fright. What is sacred goes far beyond the religious.”
“Consciousness is the great poem of matter, whose opposite extreme is a Grand Canyon. In between, matter has odd fits and whims: lymph, feathers, brass. Cactus strikes me as a very odd predicament for matter to get into. But perhaps it is no stranger than a comb of an iris, or the way flowers present their sex organs to the world. There is something about the poignant senselessness of all that rock that reminds us, as nothing else could so dramatically, what a bit of luck we are, what a natural wonder.”
“There would be no canyon as we perceive it-subtle, mazy, unrepeating- without the intricate habits of light. For the canyon traps light, reveals itself in light, rehearses all the ways a thing can be lit.”
“The great lesson from the true mystics, from the Zen monks…is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one’s daily life, in one’s neighbors, friends, and family, in one’s back yard…to be looking everywhere for miracles is to me a sure sign of ignorance that everything is miraculous.” Maslow
“Deep play arises in such moments of intense enjoyment, focus, control, creativity, timelessness, confidence, volition, lack of self-awareness (hence transcendence) while doing things intrinsically worthwhile, rewarding for their own sake…It feels cleansing because when acting and thinking becomes one, there is no room left for other thoughts.”
“One of the most surprising facts about us human beings is that we seem to require a poetic version of life. It’s not just that some of us enjoy reading or writing poetry, or that many people wax poetic in emotional situations, but that all human beings of all ages in all cultures all over the world automatically tell their story in a poetic way, using the elemental poetry concealed in everyday language.”
“as many have pointed out, poetry is a kind of knowing, a way of looking at the ordinary until it becomes special and the exceptional until it becomes commonplace.”
“ we ask the poet to reassure us by giving us a geometry of living, in which all things add up and cohere, to tell us how things buttress once another, circle round and intermelt.”
“Every truth has geological strata…”
“On the other hand, one can turn bronco riding into drudgery. One can create mildly. One can live at a low flame. Most people do. We’re afraid to look foolish, or feel too extravagantly, or make a mistake, or risk unnecessary pain. One fears intensity. But, given something like death, what does it matter if one looks foolish now and then, or tried too hard, or cares too deeply? A shallow life creates a world as flat as a shadow. In that half-light, the sun never burns, risks recede, safety becomes habit, and individuals have little to teach one another.”
“For those future residents of Earth: may their world still be packed with mysteries. May they still grow giddy on the eve of a great adventure. May they become more responsible to one another and the planet. May they keep their taste for the renegade. May they never lose their sense of innocence and wonder. May they live to chase brash and astonishing dreams. May they return to tell me, if such a thing is possible, so that I can know the answer to a thousand scrupulous puzzles, hear of whole civilizations that bloomed and vanished, learn what travel to other solar systems has revealed, and behold the marvels that arose while I was gone. If that’s not possible, then I will have to make do with the playgrounds of mortality, and hope that at the end of my life I can say, simply, wholeheartedly, that is was grace enough to be born and live.”
November 11, 2020
(Review originally written July 2005, if anyone can remember what book drama was happening on the 16th of July that year...)
Diane Ackerman, I am convinced, could write an entire book on moldy bread and it would be a treat. So far, I have followed her through gardens, grey matter, Shakespeare, penguins and albatross, and into taste buds, angels, and the fighting rats of Proust. I was saving Deep Play because I had already run through every other Ackerman book I could buy or call in from the library, but decided that the let-down after the 16th was worth an occasion.
With her gift for poetry and an unique bent for science, Ackerman makes real the wonderful, and helps us see, feel, and taste where the wonder comes in. With Deep Play, she attempts to explain the waking dream state that scientists, artists, and mystics must enter in order to discover and create, and the ceremonies and agreements that connect us all.
All in all, as good an experience as ever. She treats her readers like friends, and I love to argue with her almost as much as I want to follow wherever she takes it into her head to go. My only complaint? This was a brief book, and had me hankering for another go at An Alchemy of Mind to complete my education.
Diane Ackerman, I am convinced, could write an entire book on moldy bread and it would be a treat. So far, I have followed her through gardens, grey matter, Shakespeare, penguins and albatross, and into taste buds, angels, and the fighting rats of Proust. I was saving Deep Play because I had already run through every other Ackerman book I could buy or call in from the library, but decided that the let-down after the 16th was worth an occasion.
With her gift for poetry and an unique bent for science, Ackerman makes real the wonderful, and helps us see, feel, and taste where the wonder comes in. With Deep Play, she attempts to explain the waking dream state that scientists, artists, and mystics must enter in order to discover and create, and the ceremonies and agreements that connect us all.
All in all, as good an experience as ever. She treats her readers like friends, and I love to argue with her almost as much as I want to follow wherever she takes it into her head to go. My only complaint? This was a brief book, and had me hankering for another go at An Alchemy of Mind to complete my education.
June 24, 2021
this highlights play in a whole new light. Ackerman shows us how art, culture, spirituality, literature, the natural world all collide under the umbrella of PLAY.
this is helpful for those who find productivity as the one and only way to feel satisfied, this highlights other, more nourishing ways, to use ones time
this is helpful for those who find productivity as the one and only way to feel satisfied, this highlights other, more nourishing ways, to use ones time
July 31, 2022
Some beautiful writing and observations but also a bit repetitive and self indulgent. Would have been better as a single essay.
February 15, 2018
This is a collection by essays by the whimsical Diane Ackerman about the vital, even divine, need for humans to take time to seriously kick back and have fun. “Play is a refuge from ordinary life (6),” Ackerman states, “…an alternate reality with its own rules, values, expectations (20) . . . .which lead people into an altered mental state …clarity, revelations, acceptance of self and other life-affirming feelings” (24). For her, “deep play” is the equivalent of spontaneity, discovery, being open to challenges. Ackerman adores nature, particiularly while riding a bike, devotes a good deal of her philosophies to the practice of communing with the beauties of the outdoor world. She also provides an interesting history of biking and its thereapeutic values to people over the last century. Her second chapter, entitled “at-one-ment” is a Zen-like discussion of perfection through deep play. Her third chapter analyzes the value of “scared places.” She mentions Stonehenge, Mecca, Delphi, Mount Arafat, etc., but notes that any person can have his/her own sacred place. “We need holy places, kept secluded, sprung loose from reality, separated from life’s routines . . . . (58) . . . . such places trigger in us an altered state of awareness, a shift in consciousness to a profound sense of spirituality, escitation, and emotional intensity” (62) Another chapter ruminates on certain people who have thrill-seeking personalities, and get inspired by putting themselves in danger in order to attain a temporary high, like that produced by cocaine (88). (No thanks, I say). “There are things you do even though they may be frightening, not because you don’t feel fear, but because knowledge is a tonic” (97). In the fifth chapter, “The Gospel According to This Moment,” Ackerman introduces a minister friend who calls himself an “existential Christian,” (Actually, that term is an oxymoron as existentialists are by definition, atheist, or at the very least, agnostic) and muses about how one can be profoundly spiritual without being religious in the traditional sense. “One problem with religion today is that it is mainly non-religious . . the orginal sacredness disappears in dogma and ritual (105) . . . Core religious experience has nothing to do with formal religion or, for that matter, a supernatural being . . . . Religion offers a passionate form of deep play, whose peak moments are subjuctive as they are intense. People create their own private religions” (106). Her sixth chapter is a nice essay on writing, interpreting, and enjoying poetry. “Poetry is an education in life. It’s also an act of deep play” (133). Her last chapter discusses the healing power of nature. “When we spend most of our lives indoors, what becomes of our own wildness? . . . We can lose our inner compass” (156). Ackerman insists that nature is a restorative when dealing with pain. When she had a broken foot, she craved the outdoors so much that she dragged herself on to a scooter for a ride. “Those doses of sunlight and wildlife were my salvation” (157). She also provides a strong case for the value of meditation, and urges readers to live life to the fullest, not only by seizing the day, but by seizing the night as well--carpe diem and carpe noctem.
January 10, 2009
I have no idea what it would be like to spend a day with Diane Ackerman, but I imagine I would feel like I was being pulled along in the whirlwind of a slightly autistic, slightly ADHD-addled mad scientist who happens to be embodied by equal parts Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Dylan Thomas, and... aw, crap. I really have no idea what it would be like. Ackerman is just so energetic and curious and playful and she notices things that remain oblivious to us mortals -- and then she manages to write beautifully about her observations. What a specimen.
Deep Play is in no sense an instructional or how-to type of book. If you are looking for a book that would tell you how to engage in deep play, which Ackerman defines as "1. A state of unselfconscious engagement with our surroundings 2. An exalted zone of transcendence over time 3. A state of optimal creative capacity," well, you're looking in the wrong place. But if you want a 200-some page description of how these states feel once you get there and how central they are to the essence of humanity, then this is your book. Fun, fun, fun.
Deep Play is in no sense an instructional or how-to type of book. If you are looking for a book that would tell you how to engage in deep play, which Ackerman defines as "1. A state of unselfconscious engagement with our surroundings 2. An exalted zone of transcendence over time 3. A state of optimal creative capacity," well, you're looking in the wrong place. But if you want a 200-some page description of how these states feel once you get there and how central they are to the essence of humanity, then this is your book. Fun, fun, fun.
March 14, 2009
Grace was reading this for a college class and passed it on to me. I absolutely enjoyed it-I underlined passages, wrote about it in my journal and now I periodically dip into it to see what new insights I can get from it. Diane Ackerman talks about the importance of play in our lives-and not just normal play but deep play that takes us out of our ordinary, everyday existence and connects with ourselves and the world around us. It made much more sense to me than all the books I tried to read on meditation-she says that deep play is a form of meditation-"At the heart of deep play is a form of meditation favored especially by westerners; people who tend to prefer bustle to inertia prefer to meditate in motion." So now I don't have to feel guilty because I seem to be incapable of meditating!
October 7, 2018
There is a familiar eclecticism that is evident in Ackerman's other books but Deep Play does not hold together as well as other books. The research is there but there are times when it seems that Ackerman is playing more than usual. The book seems more personal at time and there are a few rabbit holes that she dives into a bit more deeply than I anticipated. The result is less cohesive than her other work but there are some rewards in there. The enchantment that she can spin in her other books is more intermittent this time out. Still, a good read.
August 2, 2011
I'm never bowled over by Ackerman, but I admire her. She reaches as far as possible in as many directions as possible when researching her subject; the result is that there is bound to be a well-explored metaphor that personally appeals to you. And if not, you'll likely be charmed by the wonderment in her voice...maybe oil the chain on your bicycle and hit the road, remembering to look up long and often.
April 4, 2009
this book was inspiring for getting in touch with my sense of play. i've always felt it whenever i go into nature or am exercising in the outdoors or just when i'm being especially aware of my surroundings, whether they be people or just outdoors - but ms. ackerman has a way of putting the feeling of that into words that i do not. also, she was a student and friend of mr. carl sagan and it was nice to hear her anecdotes even though he had recently lost a long fight with cancer.
August 22, 2008
So, some authors are good company and some authors aren't. Diane Ackerman is entirely too present in this book for me and I have a hard time imagining myself hanging out with her, watching penguins or going through therapy or whatever it is she is doing. I much prefer her "natural history" books where the subject takes center stage.
September 15, 2019
Honestly, I was a bit disappointed in this book. There were excellent excerpts, but I feel like the amount of writing about play itself was only a tenth of the book or less. The author babbles for dozens of pages about stars and nature and random musings, and doesn’t really seem to be moving towards a point. Sorry, just didn’t do it for me.
April 20, 2023
I agree wholeheartedly with her basic premise(s) - which seems to be that humans both want / yearn for / need ways to fully engage in a particular activity - what she calls “deep play” - and also are often disconnected from those kinds of activities because of our highly sedentary, highly lethargic lifestyles (both physically and intellectually lethargic). But beyond agreeing with her basic premise, I found this book, as a whole, a bit perplexing. It’s not really memoir - we don’t learn much of real compelling interest about the narrator. It’s not really a scientific book. I guess the closest thing to say is that it’s a collection of essays that sort of kind of have this “deep play” in common. But for the most part, I had this nagging sense while I was reading that it was just a random assortment of thoughts and opinions that lacked the coherence of a single work.
December 28, 2017
I absolutely LOVE Diane Ackerman's writing and have read several of her books. However, I just could NOT get into this one. Maybe its me... Maybe its the book? Whichever it is, I couldn't finish it. I kept picking it up and reading a few paragraphs, then skipping pages and trying again.
Anyway, I've donated my copy to the local library. I hope someone sees it and loves it. Its just not for me. I'll stick with A Natural History of the Senses and Cultivating Delight.
Anyway, I've donated my copy to the local library. I hope someone sees it and loves it. Its just not for me. I'll stick with A Natural History of the Senses and Cultivating Delight.
May 11, 2024
Thought provoking and so very interesting - as usual for me with this author. She is amazing with her words. Had some favourite chapters but the one about words and poetry was particularly interesting to me. She discusses such interesting angles regarding play and takes perspectives that I never thought about. I love her mind! She would be incredible to talk to I imagine. Loved this book and I do recommend it!
July 4, 2025
I have appreciated Ackerman's work, but this one was an indulgent smattering of her musing and her private self congratulations for the adventurous life she has lived. It has lots of little nuggets that were fun to read and her writing occasionally soars, but it was hard to keep trudging along for more of the same. I can't recommend it unless you are a diehard fan that will forgive her for the egocentricity.
December 15, 2020
I had read Ackerman's A Natural History of The Senses years ago and really loved it. This one, however, was difficult for me to get through. She does have a lovely sense of the world and I appreciated many of her insights, but the "deep play" concept was built with tenuous strings at best. Lots of meandering.
May 13, 2018
I have loved other books by Ackerman so much; I credit her book on the Senses as being the first non-fiction book that I couldn’t put down. This book has interesting - sometimes even compelling - chapters. I recommend 2, 3, 4, 8, & 9. The rest is a wandering treatise/memoir.
August 27, 2022
Oh I wanted to love this book. The first chapter is excellent. And there are moments of such pure poetic goodness. But alas, the gold gets lost amidst her rambling stories of knee injuries and bicycle trips and tangents that hold no connection to the plot.
January 1, 2019
A topic I'm interested in and a philosophy I share.
June 16, 2020
It could have been so much better.
July 27, 2020
Ok read, nothing new. Whole thing seems to say find a hobby you care about. I have not read any of her other writing and do not think at this point that I will be doing so.
April 2, 2021
not as lyrical or an enjoyable a read as her other books
May 4, 2021
I had to put this one down after Ackerman described Gauguin's time in Polynesia after abandoning his family as "deep play".
April 15, 2022
queen got a little too distracted in this one
July 13, 2023
Has some beautiful writing, but the stream-of-consciousness style really doesn't work for me. Never quite lands anything. It could be profound if it had some structure.
July 22, 2023
On target but misses the bullseye by a substantial margin.
December 28, 2023
Holy FUCK. Why does this capture so many of my thoughts and feelings that other humans DON'T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND!!!!!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 63 reviews