Reviews

In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise by George Prochnik

lintulai's review

2.0

First of all: listening to a book about pursuing silence as an audiobook in my noisy car contradicts the purpose of a book about silence. Apart from that, I don't think the author reached his explicit purpose of finding a "meaning in a world of noise". There were interesting excursions to different areas of noise/sound/silence, and a somewhat surprising chapter about the deaf world, which wasn't made relevant - I find it hard to imagine that a seeing person would write about darkness and lack of sunlight and interview a blind person about the subject. Maybe that's just me being weird, but silence as lack of noise and silence as a result of being deaf seem to be very different things and not sides of the same coin.

kedawen's review

3.0

I feel so lucky to live in a city with plenty of places one can go to find peace and quiet for an hour or two, where there are parks and sparsely populated coffee shops and wide open spaces. I love my neighborhood, where we're far enough away from the nearby roads that only a little bit of traffic noise can be heard at rush hour and the rest of the time the space is filled with birdsong and the chirping of frogs.

This book got me thinking about these things, and all the implications of a modern life filled with noise. I would rate it 3.5 stars if I could - the format felt a little disorganized and chaotic (fitting, I suppose) but I did appreciate the ending that suggested we teach children about the benefits of taking a moment and enjoying the silence. The section about Deaf architecture was fascinating as well.

davidr's review

4.0

I am often irked by excessive noise, so this book naturally appealed to me. I enjoyed the style, as well as the wide range of topics covered. The chapter on "boom cars" and the competitions was hilarious. The book also dipped into the subject of architectural acoustics, which is interesting to me. I also appreciate the author's conclusions, near the end of the book. The author found that trying to reduce overall noise in an environment is often a losing battle. So, instead of reducing noise, a better approach might be to increase small zones of silence. This can be done even in the hearts of cities, to some extent.

1sourapple's review

2.0

I'm very interested in the subject, but this book was too long-winded for me.

robotgoods's review

3.0

There are lots of great facts in this book (wish I'd taken notes), but it's a pretty dry read which I had trouble finishing.