Sound

A profound, beautifully written exploration of sound by a young woman who lost her hearing, then regained it.

In this surprising and moving book, award-winning writer Bella Bathurst shares the extraordinary true story of how she lost her hearing and eventually regained it and what she learned from her twelve years of deafness. Diving into a wide-ranging exploration of silence and noise, she interviews psychologists, ear surgeons, and professors to uncover fascinating insights about the science of sound. But she also speaks with ordinary people who are deaf or have lost their hearing, including musicians, war veterans, and factory workers, to offer a perceptive, thought-provoking look at what sound means to us.

If sight gives us the world, then hearing—or our ability to listen—gives us our connections with other people. But, as this smart, funny, and profoundly honest examination reveals, our relationship with sound is both more personal and far more complex than we might expect.

Bella Bathurst is a writer, photojournalist, and furniture maker. She has written four nonfiction books, including The Lighthouse Stevensons, which won the 1999 Somerset Maugham Award, and a novel, Special, which was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Observer, and many other outlets.

"After reading this book, I found myself listening in a richer and more interested way."
— Guardian

"Bathurst’s affecting memoir will enlighten and educate."
— Publishers Weekly

"A memoir of hearing loss and what the author learned...through her unexpected recovery from it. A good writer knows material when it presents itself, and Bathurst is a very good writer." 
— Kirkus Reviews

"A hymn to the faculty of hearing by someone who had it, lost it and then found it again, written with passion and intelligence … terrifying, absorbing and ultimately uplifting." 
— Literary Review

"Less a memoir than an investigation of the importance of sound in human life … a moving and fascinating book." 
— Financial Times

"Packed with detail about the physiology of hearing, the intricacies of acoustics and Bathurst's particular experience, Sound is a powerful argument for true listening" 
— Shelf Awareness

"[Bathurst] explores all aspects of sound, a phenomenon so powerful and versatile it can lull us to sleep, send us in to transcendence, or drive us mad." 
— Politics and Prose