A memoir and memento mori
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In a book with few parallels, Vincent explores women’s listening in a world filled with the noise of men, precipitated by hearing her developing baby’s heartbeat. Ranging from music to speech, noise to art, and of course silence, Vincent’s journey in sound is highly personal, including her family, her friends, her life as a music journalist before all this motherhood, and even in motherhood, there are new sounds to be heard and noted and explored: a baby’s first cry, their breathing, auditory illusions and overwhelming noises.

Song, science, the written word, performance, d/Deaf experience, anechoic chambers and sound mirrors, the Northern Lights, gay switchboards and songbirds: at times inconsistent and inexact, at others offering a surfeit of detail, this is a Frankensteinian memoir and memento mori that reminded me that sound isn’t a background but a thing in itself, a whole aspect that changes what we sense, feel and remember. Cameos include Jenny Sealey (IYKYK), Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, IONE (new to me too): a panoply of women with sound at the centre of their lives, never mind all the other stuff.

A generous welcome to a lifelong companion: four and a half stars

I started reading Alice Vincent for her gardening content but I’m willing to stay for her sound/music writing because this was pretty good. I’m not especially interested in parenthood, which formed a large part of this new non-fiction book, but I found that the idea of becoming disconnected from music as you age resonated.

I very much enjoyed this exploration of sound and listening from a female perspective. This doesn't initially sound like an interesting subject, however I found the book to be beautifully written and so very heartfelt in its honesty, particularly around early motherhood. Raw and unflinching, yet hopeful and ultimately uplifting.
With grateful thanks to Canongate Books and to NetGalley for my advance ebook copy in exchange for an honest review.

Probably Alice Vincent's most personally candid book, this time with a focus on the major life-change that is motherhood and the ambivalent emotions that arise during the process. The thread that runs through is that of listening. Triggered by an emergency hospital visit which becomes a traumatic event, Vincent begins to find the cries of her child too much to bear. It's a profound and prolific exploration of what it means to listen and really hear, how women tend to listen with their entire bodies and what that means – for the nervous system, for empathy, for extra-sensory perception, for connecting to something larger than ourselves – as well as documenting the path she takes to put what happened at the hospital into perspective with a vital examination of how PTSD manifests. I loved it and I loved all the interviews with women from wide and varying walks of life. I'll be thinking about and researching the ideas covered in this book for a long time to come.

Hark: How Women Listen by Alice Vincent is a deeply reflective exploration of sound, listening, and the often overlooked experiences of women in a world dominated by noise. Vincent, through her journey into motherhood and the overwhelming sensory overload of modern life, delves into what women listen to, how they are expected to listen, and what it means to reclaim the power of sound in a world that frequently drowns out their voices.

After the arrival of her child, Vincent finds herself surrounded by constant noise, both from the physical world and from societal expectations placed on her as a mother. Yet, amid this cacophony, she embarks on a quest to rediscover the restorative and life-affirming qualities of sound. From the intimate and universal experience of a baby’s heartbeat to the ethereal song of nightingales and the distant hum of the Aurora Borealis, Vincent explores the diverse ways in which sound can reconnect us to ourselves, others, and the world around us.

The book is a meditation on how women have often been conditioned to listen, whether to the demands of others or the unspoken messages embedded in society’s expectations. It also asks whether, by reclaiming our capacity to listen deeply, we can reconnect to a more meaningful existence.

Hark is an evocative, personal, and ultimately empowering work. It speaks to those who feel unheard, providing both a gentle invitation and a challenge to listen more intently in a world that too often fails to listen back.

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An absolutely stunning exploration of sound, listening and early motherhood. I read this breathlessly, racing through the pages, finding much to savour but also desperate to inhale more. I've not read anything yet that so beautifully articulated my first months of being a parent.

A beautiful, compelling read that lives up to the high hopes I had after reading Vincent's earlier work. Wonderfully written, it was an insightful look at a new stage of life by a must-read author.