The Foghorn's Lament: The Disappearing Music of the Coast

I loved this book and found it very moving, as well as informative and funny. It is a history of the foghorn, but so much more brilliant than that makes it sound. The sound of the foghorn is one we all recognise (I think!) but they are being left behind by technological advances, and this book covers their invention and usage, their part in our collective memory, music using and inspired by them, and the strange way of life of foghorn and lighthouse keepers. I had never thought about how hard it would be to build a lighthouse in a hostile coastal environment, I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the FT review of Biswas's A Ships Opera as 'interminable honking', and was moved by the authors description of the sounds and envirnoment of show more these crazy pieces of engineering. It's obviously fairly niche, but I do think a lot of people would find something to enjoy in this book. show less