Ben Shattuck at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store welcomes BEN SHATTUCK—Pushcart Prize-winning author of Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau and owner of the oldest operating general store in Massachusetts—for a discussion of his new short story collection The History of Sound. He will be joined in conversation by HANNA HALPERIN—author of I Could Live Here Forever.

About The History of Sound

In twelve luminous stories set across three centuries, The History of Sound examines the unexpected ways the past returns to us and how love and loss are entwined and transformed over generations. In Ben Shattuck's ingenious collection, each story has a companion story, which contains a revelation about the previous, paired story. Mysteries and murders are revealed, history is refracted, and deep emotional connections are woven through characters and families.

The haunting title story recalls the journey of two men who meet around a piano in a smoky, dim bar, only to spend a summer walking the Maine woods collecting folk songs in the shadow of the First World War, forever marked by the odyssey. Decades later, in another story, a woman discovers the wax cylinders recorded that fateful summer while cleaning out her new house in Maine. Shattuck’s inventive, exquisite stories transport readers from 1700s Nantucket to the contemporary woods of New Hampshire and beyond—into landscapes both enduring and unmistakably modern. Memories, artifacts, paintings, and journals resurface in surprising and poignant ways among evocative beaches, forests, and orchards, revealing the secrets, misunderstandings, and love that linger across centuries.

Written with breathtaking humanity and humor, The History of Sound is a love letter to New England, a radiant conversation between past and present, and a moving meditation on the abiding search for home.

Praise for The History of Sound

“Exquisitely crafted, deeply imagined, exhilaratingly diverse, The History of Sound places Ben Shattuck firmly among the very finest of our storytellers.” —Geraldine Brooks, New York Times bestselling author of Horse

“Shattuck has recovered what was thought lost—in American history, natural history, and unspoken human longing—and returned it to us on the page. This is what great art does. Lovingly detailed, beautifully told, with interconnections that make the reader gasp aloud, these stories are unlike anything on your bookshelf. I love The History of Sound and you will too. Get it now.” —Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less and Less Is Lost

“The History of Sound is much more than a stunning short story collection—the best I’ve read in more than a decade—it’s a seductive cluster of interweaving narratives that will keep you turning the pages even as you savor each story’s specificity, heart, and wit. Ben Shattuck writes about music, painting, history, and the natural world with such authority and grace, but it’s his characters that stay with you in their desperate attempts to make sense of this inexplicable world. I can’t wait to read whatever Ben Shattuck has coming next.” —Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea, Mayflower, and Travels with George

Masking Policy

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.