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

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.