TICK. Tock. Tick. I would do a much better job reviewing books if the clock in my office didn’t thump out the seconds like a crazed drummer. The dog’s tail whacks the floor. The floor creaks. How does anyone expect me to write in the midst of this racket?
It doesn’t surprise me that many of my fellow writers share my fantasies of a golden bubble of silence. Why else do we have writer’s retreats, tucked into sheltering forests or beside pastoral streams (where, frankly, the water gurgles damn noisily)?
Three new books embrace this silence-is-golden theme. George Prochnik’s In…
