Sound
A Story of Hearing Lost and Found
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- $159.00
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- $159.00
Descripción editorial
'By the summer of 1998, it had become clear that there was something wrong with my hearing. It didn't happen suddenly but softly, so softly I almost wasn't aware of it happening; sound seemed to have stolen away ...'
For twelve years, Bella Bathurst was deaf. She missed the punchlines and the jokes, avoided busy restaurants and raucous parties, and grew her hair long to cover hearing aids. But then, twelve years later, pioneering surgery on her ears gave her the chance to hear again.
Sound is the extraordinary story of Bella's journey into deafness and back to hearing. Mixing memoir with interviews with soldiers, sign language experts, musicians and mental health workers, Bella explores what it means to live with and without sound, and in the process uncovers a hidden world of sense and connection.
If sight gives us the world, then hearing - or our ability to listen - gives us each other. Warm, wry and honest, this is a story not just for the one in six of us with hearing loss, but for everyone who ever listened.
Published in partnership with the Wellcome Collection.
Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library that aims to challenge how we think and feel about health. Inspired by the medical objects and curiosities collected by Henry Wellcome, it connects science, medicine, life and art. Wellcome Collection exhibitions, events and books explore a diverse range of subjects, including consciousness, forensic medicine, emotions, sexology, identity and death.
Wellcome Collection is part of Wellcome, a global charitable foundation that exists to improve health for everyone by helping great ideas to thrive, funding over 14,000 researchers and projects in more than 70 countries.
wellcomecollection.org
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this fascinating memoir, British novelist Bathurst (Special) writes of losing and regaining her hearing over the course of 12 years beginning in 1998. At age 27, Bathurst began to realize she was losing her hearing, and she explains how, feeling embarrassed and ashamed, she tried to hide her hearing loss. For a while, her life was a struggle: telephone conversations became difficult, and participation in social interactions in noisy restaurants became impossible (the wrong dishes would come out and the strain exhausted her). In addition to telling her own story, Bathurst discusses well-known figures from history and how they dealt with the loss of their hearing, such as Ludwig van Beethoven, who, in his own words, "was soon compelled to withdraw myself, to live life alone." These tidbits occasionally interrupt her own story. Gradually, however, she accepted her condition and met others suffering from hearing loss. In 2009, Bathurst, seeing her regular audiologist, learned the real cause of her hearing loss was a condition called otosclerosis (as her hearing worsened, the doctor was able to pinpoint the reason); after surgery, her hearing was restored and "everything was bigger than I had the capacity to express." For those who struggle with hearing loss, Bathurst's affecting memoir will enlighten and educate.
