Earlier this year I bought the book Noise. I tried to read it a few times while living in downtown San Diego. Whenever I started I would inevitably hear a car alarm or motorcycle. Outside noise was keeping me from reading the book Noise. Now that I’m back in the quiet comfort of the suburbs, I was finally able to read this book in peace.
Noise by Bart Kosko was not the book I was hoping for. I was hoping the book would provide a layperson understanding of the strategies for reducing noise in society. It was mostly history and engineering formulas. The book had no practical applications. How do you make a car quieter? How about a leaf-blower? Urban planning to minimize noise?
The one thing I adored about this book was the author wrote it without using a single comma. We’ve become a comma-crazed culture. In a Wired interview, the author equated commas to channel noise. I wish I could have written that last sentence without using a comma.