Erling Kagge

Silence in the Age of Noise. The Joy of Shutting out the World

Stillhet i støyens tid. Gleden ved å stenge verden ute

“Whenever I am unable to walk, climb or sail away from the world, I have learned to shut it out. Learning this took time. Only when I first understood that I had a primal need for silence, was I able to begin my search for it — and there, deep beneath a cacophony of traffic noise and thoughts, music and machinery, i-phones and snowploughs, it lay in wait for me. The silence.”
The author poses three questions: What is silence? Where can it be found? Why is it more important now than ever? What follows in his book are 33 attempts to answer the questions.
A personal, charming and significant book on a topic that powerfully addresses our modern times. Erling Kagge uses his extraordinary experiences to approach silence.
“Shutting out the world is not about turning your back on your surroundings, but rather the opposite: it is seeing the world more clearly, maintaining your direction and taking a stab at loving your life.”

Kagge stillhet i støyens tid hd

“As much an object as book, something to be handled and savored"

Wall Street Journal

“Breathtaking and inspiring, it teaches us how to find precious moments of silence—whether we are crossing the Antarctic, climbing Everest, or the train at rush hour.”

Sir Ranulph Fiennes, author of Cold: Extreme Adventures at the Lowest Temperatures on Earth
Kagge, erling photo lars petter pettersen
Photo: Lars Petter Pettersen

Erling Kagge (b. 1963) is a Norwegian explorer, author, publisher, mountaineer, lawyer, art collector, Rolex model, publisher, and father to three teenage girls. He was the first in history to reach the “three poles” — North, South and the summit of Everest. He has written books on exploration, philosophy and art collecting which have been translated to several languages. Together with urban explorer Steve Duncan, Erling Kagge descended into the subway, sewers and water tunnels of New York in 2010, walking for five days and nights through the mythical underground of the metropolis. The New York Times has described Kagge as “… a philosophical adventurer or perhaps an adventurous philosopher”. Now and then he also tries shutting out the world.