In Pursuit of Silence

An elegant and eloquent (New York Times) 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.