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

George Prochnik

3.48 · Rating details · 467 ratings · 89 reviews

More than money, power, and even happiness, silence has become the most precious—and dwindling—commodity of our modern world.

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 noi ...more

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Hardcover, 342 pages

Published April 6th 2010 by Doubleday (first published 2010)

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May 01, 2010 Greg rated it liked it

Shelves: books-about-stuff

Eh. Not, Eh!, the very friendly goodreader, but, Eh.

I saw this book and got excited. I like silence. I believe that there isn't enough of it. I think that there is a whole lot of useless bullshit being said and noises being made. I generally sit most of the time in my apartment with no background noise, well for example right now there is a garbage truck making a beeeeeepppp beeeeeeppppp noise, and now a plane, and some engine noise off in the distance and noises like that which are almost alwa Eh. Not, Eh!, the very friendly goodreader, but, Eh.

I saw this book and got excited. I like silence. I believe that there isn't enough of it. I think that there is a whole lot of useless bullshit being said and noises being made. I generally sit most of the time in my apartment with no background noise, well for example right now there is a garbage truck making a beeeeeepppp beeeeeeppppp noise, and now a plane, and some engine noise off in the distance and noises like that which are almost always there, but there is no sounds being made to entertain or distract me. No TV set on. No music playing, I'm not talking to myself. My cat is making an adorable little snoring / purring sound though, which I probably wouldn't be noticing if I had my TV on. Most of the time I'm home this is the case. I mentioned this to Karen a few months ago and she told me that this is what psychos do. Oh well.

Not that I put a huge premium on my silence. I do live in what I once read in a "Trifecta of Noise". At he end of my block is the elevated subway, the elevated LIRR which passes right below the subway, and I'm right directly under one of the incoming flight paths of LaGuardia, which is about a mile or so from my apartment, so planes fly in mighty low over my house. I don't notice most of those noises most of the time, which is good because they are all pretty fucking annoying to hear.

I don't know what I expected from this book.

I'm not exactly sure that this book needed to be written. Noise is something that needs to be thought of for various reasons, most of which this book gives some coverage too. When the book deals with straight reporting it is pretty interesting, although it doesn't feel anymore in depth than say an article in Harpers. But then there are pretty silly philosophical ramblings that sort of sound like the thoughts of a stoned undergrad; or the rambling musings by a car stereo enthusiast that doesn't sound all that different from some embarrassing things I wrote in high school notebooks that the author elevates to the level of metaphysical truths.

This book is entertaining and it made me think.

It also made me think about why I generally do not like most non-fiction books. They feel like magazine pieces that just won't end.

They feel like boilerplate books that can be churned out at will with this formula.

1. Find a grumpy New Yorker who doesn't like something.
2. Send him (or her, but him for the rest of this review since the author of this book is a male) out to the big world to discover things.
3. Have him uncover a few quirky subcultures that most New Yorkers know nothing about, but which are part of the 'problem'. In this case people who blow all their money on having loud cars.
4. Show how these quirky people are just like you and I. How they are smarter than you think.
5. Go find some quirky out of the way places most people never heard of, and visit them too.
6. Write it up in about 100,000 words, or 300 pages.

I don't know, this isn't the greatest book, it's not the greatest review either. This could have been a very interesting 30 page magazine piece, sort of a DFW style essay, but as a book it felt to me like there just wasn't enough here, maybe if there had been more I would have liked it, but I think this really was a magazine article that didn't know it's own limitations. ...more

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Jun 22, 2010 Stephany Wilkes rated it liked it

I am incredibly sensitive to noise. I have, on more than one occasion, walked out of a grocery store mid-trip, a half-filled cart left in an aisle (never with refrigerated items, of course), because the blaring music and announcements were too much and I Had To Leave Right Away Before I Killed Someone. My expectations for this book, then, were quite high: I wanted a diagnosis and actionable solutions for the Problem Of Noise. It was a little light on these.

In Pursuit of Silence is a style of boo ...more

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Mar 31, 2016 Rossdavidh rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: white

George Prochnik was on the path to becoming an anti-noise crank. It is to his credit that he realized this, and found a way to turn his next book into something more than a noisy anti-noise screed. There is little more tedious than hearing someone shout at everybody to be quiet.

Some of the people Prochnik talks to are the ones you might expect: monks, experts on noise abatement, hearing researchers. However, he also decides to talk to people who make it their business to pump up the volume of no George Prochnik was on the path to becoming an anti-noise crank. It is to his credit that he realized this, and found a way to turn his next book into something more than a noisy anti-noise screed. There is little more tedious than hearing someone shout at everybody to be quiet.

Some of the people Prochnik talks to are the ones you might expect: monks, experts on noise abatement, hearing researchers. However, he also decides to talk to people who make it their business to pump up the volume of noise. One, a consultant to businesses on what precise level and kind of "too noisy" to put in their store, meets Prochnik in Austin's Barton Creek Square mall. He also goes to Florida, to find out what people who make their car stereos as loud as possible (until it shatters the car windows) are like. It turns out, you learn as much about silence from talking to people in the business of noise, as you do from people in the business of silence, if you're willing to listen to what they have to say.

The recurring point in Prochnik's journey through the topic of silence, is that it is very rarely literal silence that we need, it is for things to be quiet enough that we can pay attention to the sounds that are still there. He spends some time in pocket parks, which is a term for a tiny plot of land that gets made into a park as an afterthought, because it is a small triangle or rectangle of land left over after all the big plots around it have been developed. Some of them, with judicious placement of walls and vegetation, can be surprisingly quiet, even in the city. He also spends some time with an architect who is at work in a college for the deaf. Not all deaf people experience their lack of hearing as silence, of course; some experience it as constant noise. But regardless, you can notice what there is to see and feel around you better, if you are not distracted by non-stop thunderous sound.

Which is probably the reason for our current epidemic of too loud. It reminds one of the problems of cities in the desert like Phoenix, where the fact that every house has an air conditioner running at full blast, spewing heat out for their neighbors' air conditioners to fight against, which means they in turn also spew out more heat. We make noise to block out the unwanted noise of everybody else, not least among them the car stereos and televisions and smartphones and all the many other devices which are used in part to block out other people's noise.

One particularly touching point was when he went with a teacher of an early grade school class, who has been trying to get them to stay quiet (all in a group, which is hard for kids) for a full minute. When he asks them to share an experience from their lives when things were quiet, they remember mostly arguments between their parents that ended with long periods of silence, or being at funerals.

It is then that Prochnik has his epiphany, which is that it is not a reduction to noise he is looking for, but an increase in silence. The difference is that the former is mostly about making the loudest things less loud, but what is most needed is for an increase in the amount of time we spend with quiet. As we spend more and more time in urban settings, often with electronic devices to make noise for us at all times, we have less and less experience with spending time in a quiet environment, and thus less ability to appreciate it. Prochnik ends with an appeal for silence as a positive presence, not by carping at noise, but by finding (and protecting) places and times to enjoy quiet, so that it isn't just one more loss of our freedom (because someone has passed a noise abatement regulation), but giving us an option we didn't have before. Silence as a positive quality to be sought out, rather than a negative quality to bemoan the loss of.

Which sounds nice, but probably requires more than anything that people go to places where other people aren't. It's no accident that our lives have gotten noisier as we have clustered together in urban environments. My daughter spends one day a week in a state park, no doubt running and laughing with other kids a lot of the time, but with occasional quiet periods as part of their day. I can hope that she will not grow up uncomfortable with silence. She is the exception here, though, as a smaller percentage of our populace spends any significant amount of time in the wilderness, or even on a farm.

Who knows, though, what the next generation may come to treasure. We may be coming to a dead end, in our pursuit of ever more aggressive noise, and the rise of electric vehicles, earbuds, and the replacement of urban factories with offices, may make it easier to walk through a city in relative silence than at any time in the last several centuries. In the meantime, if you stumble upon a pocket park or a quiet corner of your workplace or home, Prochnik wants you to hang out and see what your brain tells you when you're not drowning its voice out with other noise. The best thing about quiet is what is allows you to hear, that you might not have otherwise. ...more

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May 11, 2011 Aram rated it it was amazing

I read this book a second time for the Noe Valley Library Book Club. I actually read it last year and nominated it and the other members decided to give it a go. I like that Mr. Prochnik starts out with a simple story and then it continually evolves and changes to be such a difficult and confusing belief system that silence is good. It really is something that I need and yet it is truly not able to achieved.

I really enjoyed the chapter on architecture designed by deaf people and Deaf Space with ...more

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Jun 22, 2010 Amy rated it it was amazing

Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise

One recent beautiful day, I was curled up with a book outside, enjoying the change in the light and air of fall, with a fat orange cat on my lap. The baby was asleep, work was done, and it was finally a chance to relax. It was bliss. All was quiet. Quiet, until an extremely loud dirt bike, without a muffler, began doing circuits of the road below my house. I went from peaceful and content to plotting murder in mere seconds…just the whine of the engine mad ...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Rebecca Chalmers rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

One man's quirky adventure into the cultures of noise and silence. As a city dweller, I understand his neediness for the unintrusive, the still, the quiet; as a suburban and rural dweller, I remember craving the frenetic, the indistinguishable mass of sound. Clearly we can't listen without both sound and silence, can't perceive without the dance between presence and absence, but in the city, the balance is tipped to the point of manic.

The book is a survey of interesting ideas about silence, som ...more

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Nov 12, 2012 Jeff rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, mental-health

Of course, I read every page of this book with the rumbling hum of an aircraft in my ears.

This book blends sound science, sound anecdotes, and sound philosophy in a consistently interesting mix. The writing is a hair too precious here and there, but what can I say. Some of the stuff genuinely surprised me - for instance, did you know that people eat faster, drink faster, even just chew faster, when eating with fast music in the background compared to slow music? It's not 2% faster either, it's l Of course, I read every page of this book with the rumbling hum of an aircraft in my ears.

This book blends sound science, sound anecdotes, and sound philosophy in a consistently interesting mix. The writing is a hair too precious here and there, but what can I say. Some of the stuff genuinely surprised me - for instance, did you know that people eat faster, drink faster, even just chew faster, when eating with fast music in the background compared to slow music? It's not 2% faster either, it's like a third faster.

Given that Prochnik is a carless progressive Brooklynite, he couldn't help but frequently cite Traffic as the uber-boogeyman in the whole de-silencing of our world. (Uh, I think he is carless). He also yearns for public policy to save the day. Eventually he pretty much throws in the towel as far as the baseline noise of our world but hopes for more oases of silence, again aided by policy ("We need more Zen gardens".)

Prochnik also quotes a scientist who wants to pin the alleged increase in Autism on a lack of silent time in the early years of a child's life. Has anyone written a book about the human endeavour in the last ten years who doesn't throw in a cause for Autism? Publishers must demand this.

I don't consider myself a silence fan as much as an enemy of loudness. I've slept with talk shows playing on the radio since I was eight years old (now I sometimes use white noise software instead), and I often have two or even three radios around the house running various talk stations. What I can't stand is loud sports stadiums, loud bars, loud anything.

Given that I'm a fan of white noise, I was hoping for a bit more discussion of white noise. Prochnik does touch on it here and there (calling white noise the "kin" of silence) but not much.

This quote from a monk early in the book probably explains my lifelong use of background radio:
"Silence is for bumping into yourself. That's why monks pursue it. And that's also why people can't get into a car without turning the radio on, or walk into a room without switching on a television. They seek to avoid that confrontation."

...more

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Jul 09, 2013 Paul Signorelli rated it it was amazing

Shelves: solitude, silence

George Prochnik’s exquisite book "In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise" finds the author writing eloquently about his own quest for silence in a world he finds overwhelmingly noisy. That journey leads us with him through visits with Trappist monks in the New Melleray Abbey in Dubuque, Iowa; students who, "when they wanted quiet," found it by "closing themselves inside their rooms and playing a computer game or turning on the television" (p. 286); an architect's client ...more

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Feb 27, 2013 Caitee Nigro rated it it was amazing

Sound, like food, water, oil, is a natural resource. It doesn't grow on trees, fall from skies or sit silently underground waiting to be discovered. But sound - like any natural resource - can starve or spoil a city.
In Pursuit of Silence awakens our consciousness of the noise around us that both invigorates and destroys a setting, as Prochnik delves into the sciences of audio, psychology, geography and even engineering. Like a research paper on crack, this book tells a story that reminds us of t ...more

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Jan 17, 2016 Brian Willis rated it liked it

The world is full of noise and the noise has a devastating effect on the mental and physical health of the world's citizens. Therefore, silence is to be treasured. Where have you truly heard absolute silence except perhaps when camping at night in the middle of the forest?

This book is more a collection of anecdotes and date rather than a coherent collection of problems and solutions. Some of the data is interesting - how ambient noise in an Abercrombie and Fitch is meant to drive us into a highe ...more

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Feb 04, 2018 Piritta rated it it was ok

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 ...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Bonnie Irwin rated it liked it

While this book has its moments, I found it disappointing overall. The author spends a lot of time talking about noise rather than silence, and advances in the sound-proofing industry are given far too much geography. The book begins and ends strongly, those sections where the author really discusses his pursuit of silence. What gets left out from the promising title, however, is "meaning." The meaning and importance of silence is just not central enough to the narrative to justify the title. Fa ...more

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Jul 19, 2011 David rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, audiobook

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 b ...more

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Jul 19, 2017 Sotiris Makrygiannis rated it it was ok

Shelves: audio-book, public-library, internet

Do I need 300 pages to A) understand that loud sounds causes health problems? B) that we need to reduce noise and increase silence in this world? Probably 100 pages would have been enough to capture all info. As with the Sleep book of Arianna, looks like that there is a trend of taking every single Verb from the dictionary and making a book. Clever boys! but keep it to 100 pages max.

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Aug 21, 2010 j.c. rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-2010

Tread carefully. Reading this book will make it impossible not to hear the noise in the everyday world.

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Dec 02, 2011 Kevin Eagan rated it liked it

This books starts with an interesting premise, but it does not go into the spiritual and social implications of noise in our modern world in as much depth as I had hoped.

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Jan 27, 2012 Melissa Earley rated it really liked it

If you regularly find yourself wishing you could erase the constant noise of traffic, cell phones, music, TVs, car alarms, sirens, construction work, and all those other distracting noises of our modern world, and just find a nice, quiet place to sit and think and decompress, then you’ll find Prochnik’s latest book of interest. The author lives in Brooklyn, so he knows a thing or two about the unwelcome sounds of big city life, and this book chronicles his journey to discover just what all this If you regularly find yourself wishing you could erase the constant noise of traffic, cell phones, music, TVs, car alarms, sirens, construction work, and all those other distracting noises of our modern world, and just find a nice, quiet place to sit and think and decompress, then you’ll find Prochnik’s latest book of interest. The author lives in Brooklyn, so he knows a thing or two about the unwelcome sounds of big city life, and this book chronicles his journey to discover just what all this noise does to us, physically and psychologically, and what, if anything, we can do to combat it, or at least learn to better cope with it.
Scientists and doctors of many stripes, religious ascetics, and noise pollution activists weigh in on the dangers of modern noise levels, the latest soundproofing designs and sound measuring devices, and the overall advantages of quietness and silence. Did you know that, even after years of experiencing police sirens driving past several times a day, for instance, our eyes will still dilate and our blood pressure will go up, even if we sit quietly and the noise of the siren only barely registers? Did you realize that headphones are responsible for about 10% of all traffic accidents—because those wearing the headphones don’t hear oncoming traffic and drivers will slam on their brakes to avoid hitting them, creating the perfect opportunity to be rear-ended? Well, if you didn’t, there’s much, much more to learn about the dangers of noise, and Prochnik shares them all along the way.
On the other side of the coin, however, he also spends time with professional “boom car” drivers. Some of them compete to see whose speakers will register the highest dB levels for the longest amount of time. Prochnik rides along with them, interviews them, and their stories are interesting, even if they will probably fail to move anyone reading this book over to their lifestyle. There are also sound designers, who create “soundscapes” in shopping areas and restaurants that subconsciously encourage people to spend more or less time in a place and spend more money there as well. They cite studies that show, for example, that bars blaring music too loudly to talk over will make more money than quiet ones because people drink more, and drink more quickly, when they don’t waste all that time talking to one another. They also clear out sooner, paving the way for someone new to sit down and start drinking.
There are revelations to be found in each of his adventures, whether walking in the famed Japanese gardens of Portland, the school for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., with the boom car enthusiasts of Tampa, the architects and sound proofers of Copenhagen, or the evolutionary neuroscientists who are discovering how our earless, early mammalian ancestors “heard” via vibrations that affected tiny bones in their jaws that would later migrate and become even more sensitive to vibration and eventually develop into modern ears. All of these tales are interesting and thought provoking, although, ultimately, they are frustrating.
As his research shows, there have always been concerns about noise levels in industrial cities, and many an anti-noise society has been formed and many a piece of legislation passed to endeavor to tamper the worst of the noise and create a quieter, more peaceful environment. But further studies show that noise levels continue to go up, despite these earnest efforts, and our hearing and overall health continue to decline as a result of it. In other words, noise pollution seems to be here to stay, and ultimately all we are left to glean from Prochnik’s work is that the best we can do for our own physical and mental health is to steal away as often as we can to a cathedral, quiet reading room, waterfall or park, as a temporary, but much needed and much valued, respite. ...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Kevin rated it liked it

Shelves: general-nonfic

Prochnik does an ok job of balancing science, narrative, and journalism. i like, too, the fact that he seamlessly blends the human psyche's desire for calming, life-affirming, deeply meaningful experiences that can be obtained through silence without referring to them in New Agey woo terminology or even overtly calling them "mystical" or "religious." the science behind how silence and noise affect human behavior inside and out is the topic here and it does include valid discussion of what happen Prochnik does an ok job of balancing science, narrative, and journalism. i like, too, the fact that he seamlessly blends the human psyche's desire for calming, life-affirming, deeply meaningful experiences that can be obtained through silence without referring to them in New Agey woo terminology or even overtly calling them "mystical" or "religious." the science behind how silence and noise affect human behavior inside and out is the topic here and it does include valid discussion of what happens when we unplug ourselves from the everyday cacophony that is the reality for most modern humans.

only one part of the book did i skip: that about "boom cars." they are vehicles that have been transformed by their owners into rolling subwoofers that can generate up to 180dB of sound. this part of the book seemed to drag on and on because he wanted to tell stories and give dialogue to every character he met when he was researching this. he did make some good points about perception of noise pollution and that not every boom car owner was disrespectful with their use of extreme volume. it also allowed him to discuss the legislative aspect of noise control: how far do we go in curbing other people's sound habits?

i appreciated the book because of what he said about there being a reason that monks and ascetics of all kinds throughout history have trudged off into the desert -for the quiet: they "come for a radical confrontation with ourselves. Silence is for bumping into yourself. That's why monks pursue it. And that's also why people can't get into a car without turning the radio on, or walk into a room without switching on a television. They seek to avoid that confrontation."

the book is obviously a work of journalism but Prochnik does provide source citations and some notes in the back but he does not, however, provide number notation directly to those end notes. there's also an index which is one of the marks of a decently crafted piece of scholarship.

well worth the read and even if, like me, you've done lots of research into this kind of thing, the breadth of Prochnik's research reveals quite a bit of insight into aspects of sound and silence not usually thought of. ...more

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May 21, 2010 Blog on Books rated it it was ok

Though rarely mentioned, the world is getting louder. Urban expansion, media explosion, piped in muzak and ubiquitous earbuds are all adding up to a society that has become immersed in noise pollution, and often unwittingly so. George Prochnik, a psychology-based writer (‘Putnam Camp: Sigmund Freud, James Jackson Putnam and the Purpose of American Psychology’) has studied this in both its rudimentary and more advanced levels and published the results in his latest book, ‘In Pursuit of Silence: L Though rarely mentioned, the world is getting louder. Urban expansion, media explosion, piped in muzak and ubiquitous earbuds are all adding up to a society that has become immersed in noise pollution, and often unwittingly so. George Prochnik, a psychology-based writer (‘Putnam Camp: Sigmund Freud, James Jackson Putnam and the Purpose of American Psychology’) has studied this in both its rudimentary and more advanced levels and published the results in his latest book, ‘In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise.’

Prochnik’s research covers a wide range of issues related to both sound and silence including everything from the acoustics and physics of sound, public noise policy, antinoise activism, the science of hearing, deafness and the biophysics of the ear itself. He also engages in a host of what is best termed ‘field research’ as he takes readers to environments ranging from the world of Noise-Cons and ‘boom cars’ to the obscure ‘pocket parks’ buried inside of Manhattan.

By exploring societal norms and environmental noise factors (for example, that bars and restaurants sell more consumable products – food and drink – when decibel levels are raised on their patrons), Prochnik is also able to elucidate the antidotes for avoiding the sound onslaught that sometimes seems to be an unavoidable inevitability of today’s complex world. By shedding light on techniques from state-of-the-art soundproofing to Zen meditation, Prochnik shows the reader a way out of the sonic noise spectrum, but he stresses, it is not without its cost.

In all, ‘In Pursuit of Silence’ is not a prosaic tome (as one might presume) as much as it is a neo-scientific study; not as clinical as a text on the subject, but still focused and specific. Whether you view that as a benefit or a criticism depends on what you are looking for. If a serious study of the current state of the noise-silence continuum in the modern urban world is what you seek, this may be a book for you. If not, you might find it a bit dry. ...more

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Feb 11, 2017 Elise rated it liked it

Shelves: borrowed, nonfiction

I've read this book a dozen times. Ok, not this specific book but this book belongs to a genre I sort of call "Harpers & the Atlantic Spawn a Massive Love Child". It's not catchy but I'm still working on it.

Here's what it is: pick a topic that's broad but accessible. Quiet, slow food, disposable stuff, attention span, I dunno, whatever. Find a writer, probably a long-form journalist who's quirked by that topic. You know, the guy wearing huge hearing protectors in the office or the guy who w ...more

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Mar 31, 2010 John rated it it was ok

A mostly well-researched book, Prochnik's survey of noise and silence in contemporary society includes a vast survey of anecdotes and history without managing to come to any solid conclusions about the subject matter beyond "there should be more silence in New York" -- since he writes mostly from the perspective of a New Yorker looking at other parts of the world as "not-New York," particularly while he talks of spending time with "urban boom car drivers" in Florida who he ultimately (and border ...more

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Mar 11, 2013 Ken rated it it was ok

I had really high hopes for this book and made it through the fairly interesting 20-page introduction ready to move on. I didn't get much further before finding myself annoyed at various writing weaknesses that hampered my appreciation.

At first, it was hard for me to pinpoint, but over several pages close together, I found three types of problems that added up to not wanting to finish the book. Ah, well. Here they are:

-On a walk in the dark: "The deep silence was instantly broken by the squitch ...more

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Feb 22, 2018 Elizabeth rated it it was ok

Skimmed only.

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. Listening to doctors, neuroscientists, acoustical engineers, monks, activists, educators, marketers, and aggrieved citizens, George Prochnik examines why we began to be so lo ...more

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Jul 09, 2010 Tony rated it really liked it

Prochnik may not give us deep philosophy but does provide a multifaceted survey of current contemporary noise and silence issues. From the silences of the monastery to boom cars with stereos loud enough to break their own windshields to the ubiquitous earbuds he makes explicit many aspects of silence and noise we likely have not thought through: “the military and the monastery are each … dedicated to the watchful preparation for death—often in silence.” “… the centrality of silence to life in a ...more

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Jan 14, 2014 Janet Roberts rated it liked it

I read this book in connection with the exhibitions honoring John Cage, specifically at UC Berkeley, the Berkeley Art Museum, and a chapter at a time, like a meditation about its subtitle, "Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise"...Noise pollution as an environmental catastrophe brought upon human beings by themselves, with myriad examples that the author has researched, including visiting monks who practice Silence. The monks that Georgia O Keefe visited on the "long road"(painting in the Ch ...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Tim Wood marked it as to-read

The Origin and Cultural Evolution of Silence
by Maria Popova
‘Sound imposes a narrative on you, and it’s always someone else’s narrative.’
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.ph...

A painter friend of mine once told me that he thought of sound as an usher for the here and now. When he was a small child, Adam suffered an illness that left him profoundly deaf for several months. His memories of that time are vivid and not, he insists, at all negative. Indeed, they opened a world in which the images he ...more

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Feb 13, 2012 Becky rated it liked it · review of another edition

I am huge fan of silence, or at least quiet, and noise of various kinds is my main complaint about living in the city, so I was interested in this book from the start. It's an exploration of noise and silence in our culture in general, and also a look into how and why we hear, why too much noise is not good for us even though society is becoming increasingly louder, and those sorts of ideas. I enjoyed reading it, and it was interesting to see the information the author had gathered, though some ...more

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Feb 23, 2018 Jcon4307justin rated it liked it

I identified with the author. An older guy living in NY who's a bit of a curmudgeon with a reputation for being intolerant of noise. Hard for a NYC resident.

He takes you on his journey through monasteries, churches, Abercrombie stores and "boom car" rallies in trash-ass Florida. You also follow along his intellectual journeys talking to audio and hearing experts and as he muses down alleyways of thought about the nature of silence and noise.

I didn't come away with a ton of cocktail party nuggets ...more

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May 03, 2017 Karen rated it really liked it

A Mary Roach-like investigation into the dwindling refuges of quiet. This isn't about quiet in the sense of introversion (Susan Cain) or meditation (although I picked up on hints that the author does meditate). It takes the reader from Quaker meetings to boom box competitions to a Japanese tea garden (albeit one in Oregon) to a school for the deaf and beyond and introduces the reader to quiet activists and movements. All to advocate for the societal benefits of having escapes from the daily caco ...more

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Jan 31, 2018 MountainShelby rated it really liked it

Shelves: solitude

The recent documentary, In Pursuit of Silence, affected me very deeply, to the point where I started hunting down books by featured authors. I enjoyed this book very much, particularly the chapter concerning the monastic life. Although I wasn't much interested in the chapters on noise per se, they were a necessary ingredient as most books on silence/stillness don't address the origins of sound and the very noise the authors turn away from. I'm fortunate to live in a quiet rural setting, and even ...more

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About George Prochnik

George Prochnik

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George Prochnik’s essays, poetry, and fiction have appeared in numerous journals. He has taught English and American literature at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is editor-at-large for Cabinet magazine, and is the author of In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise and Putnam Camp: Sigmund Freud, James Jackson Putnam, and the Purpose of American Psychology. He lives in New ...more