Interview with Nina Kraus, author of Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World
Nina Kraus, author of Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World recommends a fantastic range of books! Before jumping into the interview, please check out Nina's book:
Review from Book Depository:
How sound leaves a fundamental imprint on who we are.
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Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World
Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs we ask our brains to do. In Of Sound Mind, Nina Kraus examines the partnership of sound and brain, showing for the first time that the processing of sound drives many of the brain's core functions. Our hearing is always on--we can't close our ears the way we close our eyes--and yet we can ignore sounds that are unimportant. We don't just hear; we engage with sounds. Kraus explores what goes on in our brains when we hear a word--or a chord, or a meow, or a screech.
Our hearing brain, Kraus tells us, is vast. It interacts with what we know, with our emotions, with how we think, with our movements, and with our other senses. Auditory neurons make calculations at one-thousandth of a second; hearing is the speediest of our senses. Sound plays an unrecognized role in both healthy and hurting brains. Kraus explores the power of music for healing as well as the destructive power of noise on the nervous system. She traces what happens in the brain when we speak another language, have a language disorder, experience rhythm, listen to birdsong, or suffer a concussion. Kraus shows how our engagement with sound leaves a fundamental imprint on who we are. The sounds of our lives shape our brains, for better and for worse, and help us build the sonic world we live in.
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Easons €35.00
Book Depository €24.78
Waterstones £25.00
Wordery $31.12
Q. Do you have a favourite smart thinking book (and why that book)?
David Haskell's The Forest Unseen. A poetically written diary of live in the Tennessee woods, written by a plant biologist.
Review from Book Depository:
The biologist and author of Sounds Wild and Broken combines elegant writing with scientific expertise to reveal the secret world hidden in a single square meter of old-growth forest
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The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature
In this wholly original book, biologist David Haskell uses a one-square-meter patch of old-growth Tennessee forest as a window onto the entire natural world. Visiting it almost daily for one year to trace nature's path through the seasons, he brings the forest and its inhabitants to vivid life.
Each of this book's short chapters begins with a simple observation: a salamander scuttling across the leaf litter; the first blossom of spring wildflowers. From these, Haskell spins a brilliant web of biology and ecology, explaining the science that binds together the tiniest microbes and the largest mammals and describing the ecosystems that have cycled for thousands- sometimes millions-of years. Each visit to the forest presents a nature story in miniature as Haskell elegantly teases out the intricate relationships that order the creatures and plants that call it home.
Written with remarkable grace and empathy, The Forest Unseen is a grand tour of nature in all its profundity. Haskell is a perfect guide into the world that exists beneath our feet and beyond our backyards.
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Book Depository €13.58
Q. What's the most recent smart thinking book you've read (and how would you rate it)?
The Matter With Things - Iain McGilchrist ..a beautifully written, thoroughly researched account of the current human condition - drawing from neurology, art and philosophy. Rated as high as I can..
Review From Book Depository:
In this landmark new book, Iain McGilchrist addresses some of the oldest and hardest questions humanity faces - ones that, however, have a practical urgency for all of us today. Who are we? What is the world? How can we understand consciousness, matter, space and time? Is the cosmos without purpose or value? Can we really neglect the sacred and divine?
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The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World
In doing so, he argues that we have become enslaved to an account of things dominated by the brain's left hemisphere, one that blinds us to an awe-inspiring reality that is all around us, had we but eyes to see it. He suggests that in order to understand ourselves and the world we need science and intuition, reason and imagination, not just one or two; that they are in any case far from being in conflict; and that the brain's right hemisphere plays the most important part in each. And he shows us how to recognise the 'signature' of the left hemisphere in our thinking, so as to avoid making decisions that bring disaster in their wake.
Following the paths of cutting-edge neurology, philosophy and physics, he reveals how each leads us to a similar vision of the world, one that is both profound and beautiful - and happens to be in line with the deepest traditions of human wisdom. It is a vision that returns the world to life, and us to a better way of living in it: one we must embrace if we are to survive.
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Book Depository €114.68
Waterstones £89.95
Wordery $121.42
Q. Do you have a favourite childhood book?
The Pushcart War.
Review From Book Depository
It's a story of how regular people banded together and, armed with little more than their brains and good aim, defeated a mighty foe.
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The Pushcart War
Not long ago the streets of New York City were smelly, smoggy, sooty, and loud. There were so many trucks making deliveries that it might take an hour for a car to travel a few blocks. People blamed the truck owners and the truck owners blamed the little wooden pushcarts that traveled the city selling everything from flowers to hot dogs. Behind closed doors the truck owners declared war on the pushcart peddlers. Carts were smashed from Chinatown to Chelsea. The peddlers didn't have money or the mayor on their side, but that didn't stop them from fighting back. They used pea shooters to blow tacks into the tires of trucks, they outwitted the police, and they marched right up to the grilles of those giant trucks and dared them to drive down their streets. Today, thanks to the ingenuity of the pushcart peddlers, the streets belong to the people--and to the pushcarts.
The Pushcart War was first published more than fifty years ago. It has inspired generations of children and been adapted for television, radio, and the stage around the world. It was included on School Library Journal's list of One Hundred Books That Shaped the Twentieth Century, and its assertion that a committed group of men and women can prevail against a powerful force is as relevant in the twenty-first century as it was in 1964.
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Book Depository €10.75
Waterstones £9.99
Wordery $16.18
Q. Do you prefer reading on paper, Kindle or listening to an audiobook?
Depends on the book. Audiobook or paper in any case. Never kindle.
Q. Do you have a favourite bookshop (and why that shop)?
Bookends and Beginnings, Evanston IL. It is our friendly, well-run local bookstore.
Many thanks to Nina for recommending a fantastic range of books! Please don't forget to check out Nina's book Of Sound Mind: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World.
Daryl
Image Copyrights: MIT Press Ltd (Of Sound Mind), Penguin Putnam Inc (The Forest Unseen), Perspectiva (The Matter With Things), The New York Review of Books, Inc (The Pushcart War).
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