<div>&ldquo;A moving and fascinating book about sound and what it means to be human&rdquo; from the Somerset Maugham Award&ndash;winning author of The Lighthouse Stevensons (Financial Times). In this surprising and moving book, award-winning writer Bella Bathurst shares the extraordinary true story of how she lost her hearing and eventually regained it and what she learned from her twelve years of deafness. Diving into a wide-ranging exploration of silence and noise, she interviews psychologists, ear surgeons, and professors to uncover fascinating insights about the science of sound. But she also speaks with ordinary people who are deaf or have lost their hearing, including musicians, war veterans, and factory workers, to offer a perceptive, thought-provoking look at what sound means to us. If sight gives us the world, then hearing&mdash;or our ability to listen&mdash;gives us our connections with other people. But, as this smart, funny, and profoundly honest examination reveals, our relationship with sound is both more personal and far more complex than we might expect. &ldquo;Bathurst is a restless, curious writer . . . After reading this book, I found myself listening in a richer and more interested way.&rdquo; &mdash;The Guardian &ldquo;A hymn to the faculty of hearing by someone who had it, lost it and then found it again, written with passion and intelligence . . . terrifying, absorbing and ultimately uplifting.&rdquo; &mdash;Literary Review &ldquo;Bathurst&rsquo;s affecting memoir will enlighten and educate.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly &ldquo;A memoir of hearing loss and what the author learned . . . through her unexpected recovery from it. A good writer knows material when it presents itself, and Bathurst is a very good writer.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews</div>

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Sound

<div>For centuries the seas around Scotland were notorious for shipwrecks. Mariners&#39; only aids were skill, luck, and single coal-fire light on the east coast, which was usually extinguished by rain. In 1786 the Northern Lighthouse Trust was established, with Robert Stevenson appointed as chief engineer a few years later. In this engrossing book, Bella Bathhurst reveals that the Stevensons not only supervised the construction of the lighthouses under often desperate conditions but also perfected a design of precisely chiseled interlocking granite blocks that would withstand the enormous waves that batter these stone pillars. The same Stevensons also developed the lamps and lenses of the lights themselves, which &#34;sent a gleam across the wave&#34; and prevented countless ships from being lost at sea.While it is the writing of Robert Louis Stevenson that brought fame to the family name, this mesmerizing account shows how his extraordinary ancestors changed the shape of the Scotland coast against incredible odds and with remarkable technical ingenuity.</div>

The Lighthouse Stevensons

<div>An &ldquo;entertaining&rdquo; historical investigation into the scavengers who have profited off the spoils of maritime disasters (The Washington Post). Even today, Britain&rsquo;s coastline remains a dangerous place. It is an island soaked by four separate seas, with shifting sand banks to the east, veiled reefs to the west, powerful currents above, and the world&rsquo;s busiest shipping channel below. The country&rsquo;s offshore waters are strewn with shipwrecks&mdash;and for villagers scratching out an existence along Britain&rsquo;s shores, those wrecks have been more than simply an act of God; in many cases, they have been the difference between living well and just getting by. Though Daphne du Maurier and Poldark have made Cornwall famous as Britain&rsquo;s most notorious region for wrecking, many other coastal communities regarded the &ldquo;sea&rsquo;s bounty&rdquo; as a way of providing themselves with everything from grapefruits to grand pianos. Some plunderers were held to be so skilled that they could strip a ship from stem to stern before the Coast Guard had even left port. Some were rumored to lure ships onto the rocks with false lights, and some simply waited for winter gales to do their work. This book uncovers tales of ships and shipwreck victims&mdash;from shoreline orgies so Dionysian that few participants survived the morning to humble homes fitted with silver candelabra, from coastlines rigged like stage sets to villages where everyone owns identical tennis shoes. Spanning three hundred years of history, The Wreckers examines the myths, realities, and superstitions of shipwrecks and uncovers the darker side of life on Britain&rsquo;s shores. &ldquo;Bathurst, who won a Somerset Maugham Award for The Lighthouse Stevensons, offers a spellbinding tale of seafaring men, their ships and the ocean that cares for neither.&rdquo; &mdash;Publishers Weekly &ldquo;A fascinating, haunting account of pillagers, plunderers, and pirates.&rdquo; &mdash;John Burnett, author of Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas</div>

Bella Bathurst
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Books By Bella Bathurst (3 Books)

Sound

The Lighthouse Stevensons

The Wreckers

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Books By Bella Bathurst (3 Books)

Sound

The Lighthouse Stevensons

The Wreckers

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