Jun 02, 2010

As Mary Ellen Eagan notes, the release of a trio of books on noise in our society has put noise in focus in a variety of sources:

I’m about halfway through Garret Keizer’s The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want - it’s a great book, and what’s even better is that fact that I’m in it! I’ll write more about it when I finish but I can tell you that it’s a very insightful take on noise from a perspective of power (or more accurately, powerlessness) and it’s historical effects on society. I hope that Zero Decibels: The Quest for Absolute Silence and In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise are similarly enlightening.

A couple of recent stories that are directly linked to these new books:

• Boston Globe: “Fixing the noisy hospital”
• NPR’s Talk of the Nation: Fed Up With Noise, Foy Seeks ‘Zero Decibels’
• New York Times: “Noises Off”

A couple of links that aren’t directly linked, but are apropos:

• Parade Magazine: “Americans Forced to Quiet Down”
• NDTV:China bans noise to let students study

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