“The closest thing that the American theater currently has to a David Foster Wallace, Rapp can give you the head rush of sophisticated literary allusion and unreliable narrative trickery à la Dostoevsky, and yet talk of Plano, Illinois, and let you know that he knows exactly how it feels…A gripping stunner of a play.” —Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune When Bella Baird, an isolated creative writing professor at Yale, begins to mentor a brilliant but enigmatic student, Christopher, the two form an unexpectedly intense bond. As their lives and the stories they tell about themselves become intertwined in unpredictable ways, Bella makes a surprising request of Christopher. Brimming with suspense, Rapp’s riveting play explores the limits of what one person can ask of another.

A tense, haunting new play from a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

"A lucid and passionate case for a more mindful way of listening to and engaging with musical, natural, and manmade sounds." —New York Times In this tour of the world’s most unexpected sounds, Trevor Cox—the “David Attenborough of the acoustic realm” (Observer)—discovers the world’s longest echo in a hidden oil cavern in Scotland, unlocks the secret of singing sand dunes in California, and alerts us to the aural gems that exist everywhere in between. Using the world’s most amazing acoustic phenomena to reveal how sound works in everyday life, The Sound Book inspires us to become better listeners in a world dominated by the visual and to open our ears to the glorious cacophony all around us.

Recounts the stories of the music world's most notable recording studios and of history-making records that were made at each, from the John Coltrane sessions in Rudy Van Gelder's living room to Frank Sinatra's recordings at Capital Records.

In this poetic exploration of the auditory imagination, the third in his series on sonic aesthetics, Seán Street peoples silence with sound, travelling through time and space to the distant past, the infinite future and the shadow lands of the inner psyche. Our mind is a canvas on which the colours of the sound world leave permanent impressions. It is the root of all listening.

"Do you have a favorite sound?" little Yoshio asks. The musician answers, "The most beautiful sound is the sound of ma, of silence." But Yoshio lives in Tokyo, Japan: a giant, noisy, busy city. He hears shoes squishing through puddles, trains whooshing, cars beeping, and families laughing. Tokyo is like a symphony hall! Where is silence? Join Yoshio on his journey through the hustle and bustle of the city to find the most beautiful sound of all.

The Sun: "Simply charming" Roy is a lion and a sound catcher. He catches the sounds of the city and makes them into music, trying to avoid the annoying attentions of his neighbor, Jemmy. Feeling like his music isn’t good enough, Roy goes on a journey to find the best sound in the world for inspiration. He hears the pitter-patter of the rain in the forest, the wind whistling through the desert, and the hustle and bustle of the souk at sunrise, but none of it helps—he can’t decide which is the best sound. Just as he’s about to give up, he hears a familiar voice . . . can Jemmy teach him that perhaps there are lots of beautiful sounds, not just one, and that for Jemmy, Roy’s music is the best of all? This gorgeous debut picture book is a heart-warming tribute to the power of friendship.