A Book of Noises: Notes on the Auraculous | A Talk by Caspar Henderson

A compendium of sounds from this world and beyond, from the author of A New Map of Wonders and The Book of Barely Imagined Beings.

Sound shapes our world in invisible but significant ways, and here Caspar Henderson brings his characteristic curiosity, knowledge and sense of wonder to the subject to take us on an exhilarating journey through the heard universe.

A Book of Noises gathers together sounds from the cosmos, the natural world, the human world, and the invented world, as well as containing quiet pockets of silence. From the vast sound of sand in the desert to the tuneful warble of a songbird, to the meditative resonance of a temple bell and the improvisational melodies of jazz, this is a celebration of all things auricular.

Caspar Henderson has been a journalist and an editor: a contributor to BBC Radio 4, Financial Times, Guardian, Nature, New Scientist and openDemocracy. His debut, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings (Granta, 2012), won the Roger Deakin Award of the Society of Authors and the Jerwood Award of the Royal Society of Literature, and was shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books. A New Map of Wonders (Granta) was published in 2017. A Book of Noises will be published by Granta in October 2023.

This talk will take place in the Cathedral library and won't be streamed or recorded. Copies of A Book of Noises: Notes on the Auraculous will be available to purchase on the evening and Caspar will kindly be signing them.