Books

Books : reviews

Trevor Cox.
Sonic Wonderland: a scientific odyssey of sound.
Penguin. 2014

This is the story of Trevor Cox’s investigation into the Sonic Wonders of the World. In the Mojave Desert he finds sand dunes that sing. In France he discovers an echo that tells jokes. In California he drives down a musical road that plays the William Tell Overture. In cathedrals across the world he learns how acoustics changed the history of the Church.

Touching on physics, music, archaeology, neuroscience, biology, and design, Cox explains how sound is made and altered by the environment and how our body reacts to peculiar noises from the exotic sonic wonders he encounters on his journey, to the equally unique and surprising sounds of our everyday environment.