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A Book of Noises is an invitation to listen more deeply to the world, to one another, and to the hum of existence itself.
British writer and journalist Caspar Henderson turns his boundless curiosity toward sound, exploring what it reveals about being alive. In a series of short essays arranged around four categories: anthropophony (human sound), biophony (the sounds of other life), geophony (the planet), and cosmophony (space), he moves fluidly from “Sound in Space” to “Plants,” “Volcano,” and “Bells,” weaving the scientific, the historical, and the personal with elegance and humor.
One essay describes a vine in the rainforests of Cuba whose bowl-shaped leaves help bats find its flowers faster than other plants, an acoustic alliance that ensures pollination. Such moments illuminate Henderson’s larger meditation: that sound connects species, worlds, and ways of knowing.
Against a culture dominated by the visual, A Book of Noises reawakens the ear and the imagination. Since discovering it on the shelves of the Natural History Museum in Berlin, we’ve been listening differently, hearing the clatters, clicks, and buzzes of the natural world, reminding us that we are never alone.
About the Author:
Caspar Henderson is a British journalist and writer based in Oxford. He is also the author of A Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary (2013) and A New Map of Wonders: A Journey in Search of Modern Marvels (2017).
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2023
Format: Softcover, 272 pages
Dimensions: 5.5 in x 8.5 in (14 cm x 22 cm)
Condition: New
A Book of Noises is an invitation to listen more deeply to the world, to one another, and to the hum of existence itself.
British writer and journalist Caspar Henderson turns his boundless curiosity toward sound, exploring what it reveals about being alive. In a series of short essays arranged around four categories: anthropophony (human sound), biophony (the sounds of other life), geophony (the planet), and cosmophony (space), he moves fluidly from “Sound in Space” to “Plants,” “Volcano,” and “Bells,” weaving the scientific, the historical, and the personal with elegance and humor.
One essay describes a vine in the rainforests of Cuba whose bowl-shaped leaves help bats find its flowers faster than other plants, an acoustic alliance that ensures pollination. Such moments illuminate Henderson’s larger meditation: that sound connects species, worlds, and ways of knowing.
Against a culture dominated by the visual, A Book of Noises reawakens the ear and the imagination. Since discovering it on the shelves of the Natural History Museum in Berlin, we’ve been listening differently, hearing the clatters, clicks, and buzzes of the natural world, reminding us that we are never alone.
About the Author:
Caspar Henderson is a British journalist and writer based in Oxford. He is also the author of A Book of Barely Imagined Beings: A 21st Century Bestiary (2013) and A New Map of Wonders: A Journey in Search of Modern Marvels (2017).
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2023
Format: Softcover, 272 pages
Dimensions: 5.5 in x 8.5 in (14 cm x 22 cm)
Condition: New