Sounds Wild and Broken

Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction

By: David George Haskell

Narrated by: Steven Jay Cohen, David George Haskell

Finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction and the 2023 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

Winner of the Acoustical Society of America's 2023 Science Communication Award

“[A] glorious guide to the miracle of life’s sound.” —The New York Times Book Review

A lyrical exploration of the diverse sounds of our planet, the creative processes that produced these marvels, and the perils that sonic diversity now faces

We live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rain forests shimmering with insect sound and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution’s creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris, we discover how animals learn their songs and adapt to new environments. Below the waves, we hear our kinship to beings as different as snapping shrimp, toadfish, and whales. In the startlingly divergent sonic vibes of the animals of different continents, we experience the legacies of plate tectonics, the deep history of animal groups and their movements around the world, and the quirks of aesthetic evolution.

Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth history, Haskell illuminates and celebrates the emergence of the varied sounds of our world. In mammoth ivory flutes from Paleolithic caves, violins in modern concert halls, and electronic music in earbuds, we learn that human music and language belong within this story of ecology and evolution. Yet we are also destroyers, now silencing or smothering many of the sounds of the living Earth. Haskell takes us to threatened forests, noise-filled oceans, and loud city streets, and shows that sonic crises are not mere losses of sensory ornament. Sound is a generative force, and so the erasure of sonic diversity makes the world less creative, just, and beautiful. The appreciation of the beauty and brokenness of sound is therefore an important guide in today’s convulsions and crises of change and inequity.

Sounds Wild and Broken is an invitation to listen, wonder, belong, and act.

©2022 David George Haskell (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Haskell’s own joy of discovery makes it irresistible to tune in . . . [he] is spot on that sensory connection can inspire people to care in ways that dry statistics never will . . . Haskell’s previous books [...] suggested the emergence of a great poet-scientist. [Sounds Wild and Broken] affirms [him] as a laureate for the earth, his finely tuned scientific observations made more potent by his deep love for the wild he hopes to save.”—New York Times Book Review

“Earth sings and rings and warbles: a musical planet, maybe the only one in the universe. As David George Haskell tells it in his captivating new book, Sounds Wild and Broken, it is astonishing good fortune—and a fearsome responsibility—to be given this music and the ears to hear it with . . . Sounds Wild and Broken offer[s] one delight after another.”—Kathleen Dean Moore, Scientific American

“[Haskell] is something of an idiosynchratic genius . . . [his] previous works leveraged two tools that established him as one of America’s premier nature writers: his Zen-like ability to pay granular attention to what most people ignore and a lyrical writing style few scientists can muster . . . As he did in The Songs of Trees, Haskell enlivens the science by taking us on a journey, hopping from continent to continent. He wanders the mountains of southern France, treks Ecuador’s Amazon jungle, and noses about eucalyptus forests in New South Wales, all to illustrate the connection between sound and place.”—Outside

Interesting info, unsatisfactory reader.

This was packed with information – gave lots of new insights to the sound dimension.

Best not to try to listen to all at once, but in bits and pieces.

Had to speed up the reader, because normal speed was so slow, and voice inflection wasn’t engaging. Became a chore to listen to, unfortunately.

Incredible

This book is so thorough and detailed, it is truly a necessity for human beings to know themselves and their place in the bigger picture.

Stunning.

One of the most beautiful books I've read in a long time. So richly researched and stunningly executed it's destined to be a classic on writing about nature and the environment. I'm going to read this again and again. I'm so glad they found a reader up to the task of making this audible book sound vocally as wonderfully as it reads on the printed page. As a writer, and would be acoustic ecologist, I found myself cheering at both the remarkable writing and the scientific aspects captured equally well--don't miss this one.

A poet-philosopher-scientist-sage for the ages!

I truly love love David Haskell's latest song in the guise of a book. It is as melodious and poetic as the sounds of evolution at work must have been the way he describes it over millions and billions of years and reveals the creative poet-philosopher-scientist-sage that he is...

The narrator also made the work more accessible with his pleasant and easy-to-listen-to voice.

And I'm also so glad David Haskell chose to read the preface. It was magical to hear his voice after however many years since I last heard it... I hope to hear his voice again.

Having finished the Audible version, I will now probably need to read the digital version, time-willing... With Audible, you can do two things at the same time and I was listening to David Haskell's creation while cooking meals and walking the dog thus combining several of my favorite pastimes : )

One suggestion to make the listening experience even more seamless would be to include the examples of the many sounds David Haskell has collected and posted on his website at the appropriate points in the Audible version.

Full disclosure -- There are many in the Sewanee community who have been wonderful mentors to me during my four years growing up there back in the day.
And David Haskell was very important to me from the the get-go as a student advisor and to working with him as an intern writing code for computer simulations.

SP Kalita

Hard to listen to

I’m a huge fan of Haskell and found the content here less engaging than usual but I think that was mostly the narration. The voice was just hard to hear (not sonorous or crisp). With any background noise (in car, on bus) I had trouble hearing the words. And it was often flat in tone, which didn’t help. I wish the author had narrated the whole book.

A Healing Listen

While I would have loved to hear the voice of the author throughout the audiobook (especially after being treated to David's soothing tonal quality in the preface), the narrator's voice worked well for me at 1.5x speed (and got me to my next audiobook more quickly).

I loved learning about dimensions of sound that I was not consciously aware of and also about much that resonated with what simply seems natural to me but that I had not heard explained. Wonderfully affirming!

I am also grateful to learn more about the many and varied ways many sounds contrived by us humans are far more damaging and problematic than I knew. While this was disturbing to hear, it gives me great hope that the more people hear it, the more people will work to correct the problems... hopefully holistically!

And I'm not sure I'll ever be able to process the information that sound is a fundamental force in the birth of our universe (or is it a multiverse?)... did I even get that remotely right? Fascinating, but way beyond my scientific comprehension!

A great book, an irritating narrator

I love this book, and recommend it highly. David George Haskell is brilliant, and opens my eyes (ears) to wonders.
But don't listen to this audio book. Instead, read it in print. I nearly gave up on the audio book: the narrator's inflection makes it sound like he wants to provoke an argument. It was a constant irritant that I couldn't ignore. Believe me, I tried.
I also recommend watching Haskell's youtube discussion of the book that was sponsored by Town Hall Seattle.
I don't usually like an author reading their own book, but I wish Haskell had read this one instead of the professional reader.

1/2 science of sound, 1/2 liberal ruminations

The first half of the book is excellent and fits the description of the book. The second half deviates a lot, going more into increasingly generic liberal ruminations. The last 1/4 of the book goes into detail how white people, especially white males are ruining New York because white males are racist, and then mentions any attempt at a white male to explain themselves is "mansplaining." The direction the book takes, is frankly kind of bizarre. The first half is quite good however and the prose is beautiful.

Not what I expected

I got this book as a popular science book, but it's more like a long, boring essay. I couldn't finish it.

Only if you are into birds

This book is only worth your time if you are really into birds. I like birds but not enough to finish the last 7 hours.