We live in a saturated sonic envirornment. Noise is everywhere; and even at the extreme of absence, "silence is a rhythm too" (as the Slits once sang). Yet we rarely pay attention to the soundscape that accompanies us at all times. Sound Affects rectifies this omission, with seventeen essays about sound and how it touches and moves us. Topics range from rapping by Kanye West, to the noises made by urban traffic, to electronic distortions broadcast through gigantic speakers, to the barely audible squishes of worms crawling through the soil. All in all, this book brings us back to a heightened awareness of those aspects of existence that we tend, all too easily, to tune out.