The Sound Book: The Science of the Sonic Wonders of the World [Paperback]

Trevor Cox is on a hunt for the sonic wonders of the world. A renowned expert who engineers classrooms and concert halls, Cox has made a career of eradicating bizarre and unwanted sounds. But after an epiphany in the London sewers, Cox now revels in exotic noisescreaking glaciers, whispering galleries, stalactite organs, musical roads, humming dunes, seals that sound like alien angels, and a Mayan pyramid that chirps like a bird. With forays into archaeology, neuroscience, biology, and design, Cox explains how sound is made and altered by the environment, how our body reacts to peculiar noises, and how these mysterious wonders illuminate sounds surprising dynamics in everyday settingsfrom your bedroom to the opera house.Coxs enthusiasm for his specialty is contagious. Ill now bekeeping my ears wide open.Turns up the volume on&sonic oddities.Reveals how much art there is in the act of listening. Reading it made my ears more mindful.From its first page to its last,Bursting with aural arcana that adds just the right amount of tech-savvy detail,A riveting ear-opener. . . . A must-read for sound-lovers of all stripes.A lucid and passionate case for a more mindful way of listening. . . . Anyone who has ever clapped, hollered or yodeled at an echo will delight in [Coxs] zestful curiosity.