Hark
Alice Vincent
AN INDEPENDENT 'BEST BOOK TO LOOK OUT FOR IN 2025'
'Alice Vincent is on song' -KATHERINE MAY
'Stimulating and humane' -AMY LIPTROT
'This book is a quiet and profound kind of miracle' -CLOVER STROUD
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.
Product Details
About Alice Vincent
Reviews for Hark
KATHERINE MAY Stimulating and humane, Hark is vibrating with interesting people and fresh ideas and made me hear with greater attention
AMY LIPTROT Immersing myself in the beautiful, deeply thoughtful pages of Hark has a profound effect on me. Reading it has been an incredibly emotional experience, and has made me look at, and listen to, my own world in bright new ways. This book is a quiet yet profound kind of miracle
CLOVER STROUD An ardent recommendation . . . Hark offers a heartfelt, powerful exploration of the importance of sound and how it lands for women. The book takes the reader on a moving journey through Vincent's testing times as a young mother and the role music and sensory experiences play in helping forge an identity. It is a book whose themes will surely echo with many readers
Independent
A beautiful book, which left me thinking deeply and intimately about my own sonically-charged life. Hark will make you feel more alert to sound, silence and everything in-between and will leave you more curious about what it means to listen and be listened to
AMY KEY Tune out the world for a moment and tune in to these beautiful musings on music, moments, magic and matrescence
EMMA GANNON Hark not only made me cry, it opened my ears to new kinds of understanding. Gorgeously written, truly sensuous, gut-wrenchingly powerful, heartfelt and real, this is a deeply important book, alive and tuned in to the beautiful cacophony of the world. Hark is Alice Vincent's best book yet
CHARLOTTE RUNCIE A truly beautiful piece of work. Poignant, timely playful and unlike anything I've ever read before. Vincent is the best kind of non-fiction writer - curious about other people's lived experience and generous with her own. This will resonate with so many women who long to be heard
LAUREN BRAVO As I was reading, I kept thinking of people I wanted to recommend this book to. A wonderful book about becoming a mother but also about being more than a mother - full of surprises
ROWAN HISAYO BUCHANAN An important, refreshing and beautiful gift of a book. This book is my favourite of Alice's so far. I am so moved by the way she weaves her story alongside the stories of other women so generously; with such grace. Sound and self, music and mothering, love and loss, breakdown and becoming: Hark speaks to the journey of matrescence so achingly well. I am so grateful it exists
KERRI NÍ DOCHARTAIGH Unique, profound and joyfully intellectual
SUNYI DEAN Honest and revelatory, Hark compels you to dumb the din of life, listen to the world anew and learn how to be heard
MICHELLE OGUNDEHIN In Hark, Alice Vincent sets out to explore how sound can be restorative, and whether listening more deeply might help us reconnect to ourselves and others
'Best Books to Look Out For in 2025'
Independent