In Pursuit of Silence by George Prochnik [EPUB] [PDF] [MOBI] {VTS}

Title: In Pursuit of Silence
Author: George Prochnik
Category: Academic
Publisher: Anchor; Reprint edition (April 5, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0767931211
ISBN-13: 978-0767931212



Promotional info/Publisher's summary - "A brilliant, far-reaching exploration of the frontiers of noise and silence, and the growing war between them.

Between iPods, music-blasting restaurants, earsplitting sports stadiums, and endless air and road traffic, the place for quiet in our lives grows smaller by the day. In Pursuit of Silence gives context to our increasingly desperate sense that noise pollution is, in a very real way, an environmental catastrophe. Traveling across the country and meeting and listening to a host of incredible characters, including doctors, neuroscientists, acoustical engineers, monks, activists, educators, marketers, and aggrieved citizens, George Prochnik examines why we began to be so loud as a society, and what it is that gets lost when we can no longer find quiet. "

From Booklist Reviews:
"Starting with a visit to a Trappist monastery and moving through shopping malls, city gardens, and even an extreme car-audio competition, Prochnik amiably escorts readers through investigations into silence and noise in modern life. Name-dropping everyone from the expected (Thoreau) to the surprising (spacewalker Suni Williams), he asks questions of those who design the sound systems that make us spend at Abercrombie & Fitch as well as sound-proofing equipment exhibitors at Noise Con. Some prescient history is discussed, including the successful battle for quiet by Julia Rice (the “Queen of Silence”) on the Hudson River in the early twentieth century. Mostly Prochnik stays in the present, where he finds that people are accepting higher and higher noise levels, even though they crave quiet. Perhaps most illuminating is his time spent with the Deaf community at Gallaudet University, who offer an unexpectedly different perspective as they live without the impact of noise. Elegant and understated, this thoughtful look at rarely considered aspects of everyday life reveals an often unrecognized cost of modern living." -Colleen Mondor

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