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Natural History of Silence
In our busy, noisy world, we may find ourselves longing for silence. But what is silence exactly? Is it the total absence of sound? Or is it the absence of the sound created by humans – the kind of deep stillness you might experience in a remote mountain landscape covered in snow, far away from the bustle of human life?
When we listen closely, silence reveals a neglected reality. Neither empty nor singular, silence is instead plentiful and multiple. In this book, eco-acoustic historian Jérôme Sueur allows us to discover a vast landscape of silences which trigger the full gamut of our anxiety, awe and peace. He takes us from vistas resplendent with full and rich natural silences to the everyday silence of predators as they stalk their prey. To explore silences in animal behaviour and ecology is to discover a counterpoint to the acoustic diversity of the natural world, throwing into sharp relief the grating reverberations of the human activity which threatens it. It is to attune ourselves to a world that our human insensitivities have closed off to us, to take a moment simply to breathe and listen to the place of silence in nature.
When we listen closely, silence reveals a neglected reality. Neither empty nor singular, silence is instead plentiful and multiple. In this book, eco-acoustic historian Jérôme Sueur allows us to discover a vast landscape of silences which trigger the full gamut of our anxiety, awe and peace. He takes us from vistas resplendent with full and rich natural silences to the everyday silence of predators as they stalk their prey. To explore silences in animal behaviour and ecology is to discover a counterpoint to the acoustic diversity of the natural world, throwing into sharp relief the grating reverberations of the human activity which threatens it. It is to attune ourselves to a world that our human insensitivities have closed off to us, to take a moment simply to breathe and listen to the place of silence in nature.
- GenresNonfictionNature
240 pages, Hardcover
Published January 21, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 2, 2025
(I got a free advance copy of this book from the publisher.) There has been a lot in both the academic and popular science worlds about acoustics and soundscapes over the past few years. But I feel like this is unique in really focusing in on silence and exploring its importance to all sorts of animals, including us. The different types of silence outlined throughout the book were new to me, and provide a really interesting way to think about it as not just a lack of sound or noise, but a tangible and meaningful thing of its own. Neat stuff.
July 11, 2025
A bit boring and poorly structured.
August 25, 2025
I loved this book!! So refreshingly written, and a topic that I hadn’t really considered before but was so interesting to read about!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews