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The Bodley Head has acquired a title about the science behind sound, written by the president of the Institute of Acoustics, Trevor Cox.
Editor Kay Peddle bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Peter Tallack at the Science Factory. The Sound Book: The Science and Celebration of the Sonic Wonders of the World will be published in 2013.
The book gives a tour of the world's acoustic phenomena and the people behind them, with Cox visiting sewers, caves, tidal bores, burial mounds, sand dunes and concert halls to explore how sound is made and altered by the environment. It also tackles how our body hears and reacts to strange sounds, and how sounds and acoustics have inspired musicians, artists and writers. The peculiar sounds Cox writes about include whispering galleries, groaning waterwheels and Mayan pyramids that produce echoes that chirp like a bird.
Peddle said: "We are thrilled to have acquired Trevor Cox's The Sound Book. There is barely a page that doesn't contain something amusing, remarkable or startling and the possibilities for exciting digital projects beyond the book are clear."
Cox is also a professor of acousitic engineering at Salford University, and has presented 15 science documentaries for BBC radio.