Sonorous Desert: What Deep Listening Taught Early Christian Monks—and What It Can Teach Us

"A meditative blend of history and travelogue . . . brings the soundscape of the desert to life."—The New Yorker

"An engaging and inspiring book that provides much needed reflection on the significance of nature, sound, and silence in a noisy age."—Elizabeth Orens, Living Church

"[Sonorous Desert] is about the experience of solitude, sound, and silence in the ancient world and today. . . . These ideas are significant for current discussion of spirituality and human well-being."—Choice

“In an increasingly noisy world, deeply listening to the land is an essential wisdom. This book traces the nuances of silence and sonority in places where the echoes of the past are embedded in the living present. Haines-Eitzen shows readers what it might mean to ‘listen with the ear of the heart.’”—Gavin Van Horn, author of The Way of Coyote: Shared Journeys in the Urban Wilds

“If you’ve fantasized lately about finding calm amid the chaos, listen up! Kim Haines-Eitzen suggests we take a cue from Christian monks who lived more than a millennium ago. They listened to the places they loved, and the result was engagement rather than escapism. Sonorous Desert is acoustics as eco-criticism, an accessible book about an elusive ideal.”—Jamie Kreiner, author of The Wandering Mind: What Medieval Monks Tell Us about Distraction

“Sonorous Desert is a brilliantly written and wide-reaching meditation on the acoustic landscape of the desert. Reading Haines-Eitzen is like sitting beside her in the desert, training our ears to hear the past in a new way.”—Darlene L. Brooks Hedstrom, author of The Monastic Landscape of Late Antique Egypt: An Archaeological Reconstruction

“Timely, original, and exquisitely written. The beauty and clarity of Haines-Eitzen’s prose is found not only in her rich storytelling but also in her fluid exploration of her subject.”—Stephen J. Davis, author of Monasticism: A Very Short Introduction