21st May - Alice Vincent, Hark

Wednesday 21st May, 7:30pm

Backstory, 71 Balham High Rd, SW12 9AP

We're very excited to welcome back to Backstory Alice Vincent to discuss her latest book, Hark. Alice is an incredible writer and journalist, with an eye for investigating and exploring things we often take for granted. In Hark, she turns her eye to how women listen. Are women better at listening? What are women listening to? What does listening mean to us?

About the book:

We're told women are good at listening, but we rarely examine what they're listening to, what their worlds sound like, or how it feels to be expected to listen in a world of noise made by men. Like so many of us, Alice Vincent had become overwhelmed by the sensory overload punctuating our every moment. And then, a baby's heartbeat arrived.

A rapid, pulsing whoosh of white noise. An undeniable rhythm. Once again, Alice's life became cacophonous - both with a new child, but also with the societal pressures that motherhood holds.

What followed was a personal quest to rediscover sound as something alive and vital and restorative. Beyond music, Alice's journey takes her into new corners of listening: from the phantom crying heard by mothers across the world to the nightingale's song and the crackle of the Aurora Borealis. As our attention spans shrink and our sense of disconnection grows, Alice wants to find out if sound - seeking it, trying to hold on to it, making space for it in her life - can reconnect her not only to lost parts of herself but to a life more consciously lived.

Hark is a book for women who feel unheard and a means of listening more deeply in a world that has grown too loud.

Tickets Available:

Ticket only - £15 (This ticket does not include a copy of the book. You can decide to buy a copy on the night, but this will be charged in addition, at the full price of the book.)

Ticket & book  (RRP £18.99) - £22 (To collect on the night or in advance, after its publication date on 1st May.)