Discover a New Age of Peace and Quiet: Erling Kagge's Insightful Look at Silence

Stan Dandyliver: Reading this book gave me a sense of being fed and watered: it met a need in me to know that there are others who yearn for the silence of wild spaces in the midst of the daily noise of life.
There are messages and hints built in but it’s not a how-to book, rather a meditation on stillness.
I was very drawn to it and will go back to it time and again.
I wish I could meet the man and say nothing to him, just spend time in his company. And others like him and me, looking for the same.

United Kingdom on Jul 09, 2023

cheapbuzzard: A sidelight for me is getting short quotes to pair with pictures of trails to encourage people to visit our local preserves. This book has many but the writing is tight enough most cannot be dissected out. A inspiring and short read

United States on Mar 05, 2023

Pedro Alexandre Alcobia Graça: É bom mas esperava mais do silêncio

Spain on Feb 25, 2023

Mandacat1: Such a soulful, revealing read.
There's been books on silence but this one really made me feel it.
One of the few books I could not put down and read in three sittings.
So good x

United Kingdom on Jan 02, 2023

Gryffindor Bookworm: The author's powers of endurance, extreme austerities during his travels makes you want to get a grip on life and stop complaining.

There's this sense of quiet peace & solitude you feel while reading the book, yes.
But something is missing....a deep emotional connect, something alive, something more comforting or arousing joy, love..

It is beautifully penned, the photographs feel endlessly peaceful, the pale blue colour theme of the sky & snow feels ethereal..but I still missed that sense of warmth & joy.

And I do believe we find more warmth and joy in our hearts of we learn to be silent..

India on Feb 14, 2022

J. Drew: This book is a series of short essays around the theme of silence. Pascal once said, and the quote is to be found in this book, “the problem with man is that his inability to sit in a room in silence for more than 15 minutes“ or something along those lines. What I liked about this book is it it made me think about how much I sometimes crave silence, particularly in the world that is becoming more obsessed by sound and noise all the time. Once upon a time your grandparents might hear Beethoven‘s fifth once in their life, now I can access it every day on a YouTube video on my phone for free. And perhaps in that we lose something. One of the things I truly love is going for a walk, perhaps not to the South Pole like the author, but you can still find your own silence and peace in nature which allows your mind to become free and untethered. And that’s what I got from this book, this book is short but quite profound and philosophical look at why we should strive for more silence in our lives. The audiobook also features sound effects that play on your ears. It made the listen even more rewarding. I also liked the description that sound is movement in air, that obviously we...

United Kingdom on Mar 24, 2020

Gary Moreau, Author: Erling Kagge may be the ultimate challenge-seeker. According to the book’s jacket, Kagge is the first man to have completed the Three Poles Challenge on foot—the North Pole, the South Pole, and the summit of Mount Everest. Wow! I would submit that his greatest challenge however, was the decision to write a book about silence.

He obviously experienced a lot of silence when he trekked across Antarctica alone for 50 days. But this isn’t a book about the exploration of remote places. This is a book about the silence within, the kind of silence that is found on a crowded subway or a barren mountaintop. In fact, according to Kagge, you have to find it on the crowded subway. That is life. And that is when you need it most.

I completely agree. I lived in China for nine years. Having grown up in a small town in rural America and lived most of my adult life in a house that sat a few thousand meters from its nearest neighbor, I moved to Beijing, a city of 22 million, where personal space is, by necessity, simply non-existent. If you can’t get used to the idea of your face being mere inches away from the face of the stranger standing next to you on a crowded subway, you...

United States on Dec 22, 2017

PK: This book begins for me at chapter two. Continues through chapter four and then picks up again in a couple of times later. Except for these rewarding places, it's rarely about silence. It's about quietness, or breaks in noise, or pauses, or an awe in some experience. This is a remarkable man. To walk alone to the south pole, and reach the north pole too and the top of Everest, and to walk across the under of New York as well as on top of it presents a rich and driving and hungry spirit that wants to get it all, and in his exploration has been blessed with subtle and spiritually infinite experiences.

In this book, aside from those chapters that describe his experiences, in which you can imagine you sense what he experienced as silence, there are random visits with philosophers and artists and others who've left references to silence. He says in the beginning that he decided to write a book about silence. There is some writing like that here but much of it comes as an intellectual effort more than the touch of serenity a book with this title appears to offer. As if this is carried by the decision to write a book as much as by what was in him needing to get out. Still, those...

United States on Nov 27, 2017