August 20, 2024
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Review: The science of listening goes far beyond the ears
New book on the art and science of listening explores our sonic world
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overview
The Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening
By Elizabeth Rosner.
Counterpoint, 2024 ($27)
As the child of Holocaust survivors and raised in a multilingual immigrant household, author Elizabeth Rosner became a careful listener of both spoken and unspoken words. Her wide-ranging, fluid meditation on listening with the so-called third ear—a way of deeply understanding and intuitively perceiving the world beyond the range of physical hearing—is rooted in personal experience, but the contemplative vignettes explore our sonic world. Drawing together topics ranging from the rise of podcasts to the vibration-detecting sensitivity of elephants’ feet, and penetratingly exploring the hidden depths of the soundscapes around us, this work reveals the importance of listening with more than just our ears.
