In a noisy world, books on silence are booming | Lifestyle - The Guam Daily Post

Bilal Qureshi, culture writer and radio journalist observes, During my weekly visits to Kramerbooks in Washington, D.C., I can't avoid the anxiety-inducing new-arrivals section. It is filled with books laden with urgency about climate catastrophe and the collapse of liberal democracy.

 "Silence: In the Age of Noise," "The Longing for Less" and "How to do Nothing."

Now with a looming pandemic, newsworthy crises are the realm of responsible readers. But instead of partaking there, I find myself drawn to different shelves, filled with another flourishing, but quieter, genre of new releases.

I'm referring to a growing library of self-help guides for the self-care generation. Clothed in minimalist cover jackets, bathed in soft hues, these books promise calm and reprieve: "Silence: In the Age of Noise," "The Longing for Less" and "How to do Nothing." Titles that once might have disappeared in lifestyle bins are now prominently displayed among the week's bestsellers. The literature of silence is having its moment, and for this reader, it feels especially resonant...

In choosing the book form to explore noise, these authors are making an implicit argument for reading as the ultimate gift of silence. The reader who appears quiet to the outsider knows the symphonic river of ideas and conversations that flow between the pages of a great book.

Now armed with silence as an orientation rather than a sonic condition, I find myself experiencing books, films and conversations through a new filter. I'm now inspired to spend even more time with writers that make space to think and consider rather than rattle with the noise of certitude. Given their popularity, the self-help sections devoted to silence are destined to grow with even more beautiful books to purchase. I'm learning to resist the consumption temptation and quietly practice what I've already read, and now preached.
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Source: The Guam Daily Post