Natural silence is a pristine and commonplace occurrance most Americans take for granted, and unfortunately it is fast-disappearing, even in our National Parks and conservation areas. Emmy-winning acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, has made it his mission to record and preserve natural silence in all its variety, before these locales of environmental quiet vanish completely into the rising tide of man-made noise. Making a road trip across the continent, Hempton gathers his sound equipment, and scuttles off in search of ecological regions throughout the country where no audible human noise can be detected for a span of 15 miuntes. One Square Inch of Silence recounts his quest while alerting us to the beauty we take for granted along the way. Hempton sounds an urgent environmental alarm and makes a convincing case for the preservation of natural silence.

Gordon Hempton is an acoustic ecologist and Emmy Award-winning sound recordist.  For nearly 25 years he has provided professional audio services to musicians, galleries, museums, and media producers, including Microsoft, Smithsonian, National Geographic, Discovery, National Public Radio, and numerous other businesses and organizations. He has received recognition from the Charles A. Lindbergh Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Rolex Awards for Enterprise. He studied botany and plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin. His sound portraits, which record quickly vanishing natural soundscapes, have been featured in People Magazine, a national PBS television documentary, "Vanishing Dawn Chorus," which earned him an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Individual Achievement." Hempton has now circled the globe three times in pursuit of environmental sound portraits. His new audio series--Environmental Sound Portraits--is the first new work to appear in more than a decade. He lives in Port Angeles, WA. John Grossmann has been a freelance writer of magazine articles and books for nearly all of his working career.  He has written on as wide a range of topics as implied by the following list of magazines that have published his work:  Air & Space/Smithsonian, Audubon, Cigar Aficionado, Esquire, Geo, Gourmet, Health, Inc.,  National Geographic Traveler, The New York Times Magazine, Outside, Parade, Saveur, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, and USA Weekend.  He ghostwrote the 2006 book Smart Moves for Liberal Arts Grads (Ten Speed Press); and before that wrote the 100-year history of one of the nation’s oldest and most successful summer camps, YMCA Camp Belknap, which he attended as a camper and leader and where his two sons have also been campers and leaders.

Gordon Hempton and John Grossmann. Free Press, $26 (272p) ISBN 9781416559085 Though many Americans may think their country abounds in places free from human interference, acoustic ecologist and professional sound recordist Hempton readily proves otherwise. Armed with sound monitoring equipment and a well-defined goal—to find a spot that has “no audible human noise intrusions of any kind for a minimum of 15 minutes”—Hempton drives his VW bus from Seattle to Washington, D.C., visiting national parks and other anticipated sources of silence. Along the way, he contemplates the intricacies of his vehicle, the decline in songbird populations and the effects of noise stress in hospitals, while filling readers in on the basics of audio science. From rural Montana, and what may be the nation’s quietest town, to his final hike through the C&O canal, beneath Ronald Reagan National air traffic, Hempton’s travelogue is filled with absorbing descriptions of the nation’s natural treasures, inviting readers to consider the effects of rare silence against chronic noise, and the difference a single law, to “prohibit all aircraft from flying over our most pristine national parks,” could make: “If a loud noise… can affect many square miles, then a natural place, if maintained in a 100 percent noise-free condition, will likewise affect many square miles around it.”. (Mar.) Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

http://www.christianbook.com/square-silence-search-natural-noisy-world/gordon-hempton/9781416559085/pd/559085

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product_review

__USERID__

http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/ask_and_answer

Availability: Available to ship on or about 07/18/13. You may order this item now and we will ship it to you when it arrives. If you are charging this purchase to a credit card, you will not be charged for this item and its portion of your shipping charges until it is shipped.

Email me when this product is available.

• Books >> Biography >> General Biography
• Books >> Biography >> Modern-Day Biography
• Books >> Personal Growth >> Inspirational >> Inspiring Stories >> True Life
• Books >> Theology >> Ethics >> Environmental Ethics
• Crafts & Recreation >> Nature >> Conservation & Ecology
• Start A New Christianbook.com Search

I'm the author/artist and I want to review One Square Inch of Silence: One Man's Search for Natural Silence in A Noisy World.