Listen up

An exploration of noise that will open your mind to the world of sounds in nature and beyond.

- MARKFRYER

Birds do it, especially in spring, bees do it, more or less incessantly, whales do it, sometimes over vast distances, and humans do it, too, some more melodiously than others.

In fact, read this book and you'll come away with the impression that there isn't much - animate or otherwise - that doesn't do it. Make noise, that is. Or sound, if you prefer - Caspar Henderson uses the two terms interchangeably.

His exploration of the world of sound/noise is a catalogue of curiosities that ranges across the sounds of space, of the northern lights, volcanoes and thunder, birdsong, insects, plants (yes, roots make noises as they push through the soil, though you'll need some technology to hear them), musical instruments, song, bells and much more.

Rather than following a beginning-to-end approach, A Book of Noises is very much a collection for dipping into, starting wherever takes your fancy. Many of the sounds will be familiar: the aforementioned birds, bees, whales and humans, for example. Many others are beyond the realm of direct human experience, such as the sounds of deep space.

Actually, space is one of the least promising places to go hunting for sounds. Once you get beyond 100km or so above Earth, there is a vast zone with almost no sound at all, "Except, perhaps," observes Henderson, "for the occasional billionaire shouting 'Whee!"

But there is sound on stars and planets, including on the sun, which seems to be not just an uncomfortably hot place but an unpleasantly noisy one as well.