The art of stillness by Pico Iyer is a short book. It is a very good book and is a part of the Ted Talk series of books. The book was so short that I was able to read it in one sitting. Not taking an hour but maybe 45 minutes. The idea of the book is to explore the how essential silence and no...
i close my eyes and numb my senses every time i buy any of Iyer's books. they come at a hefty price but before i can reason with myself, my hands (which lie closer to my heart) impulsively sort out the cash and before i know it, the cashier's handing me my receipt. there goes my salary is what i ...
it's generally understood in Japan-specialist circles that books on Japan, and indeed Japanese authored fiction, generally fall into two categories: the books on the illusion of Japan (1) or the books on the gritty reality (2). it's considered a mark of taste to prefer the latter; you are 'daring...
"An Englishman in California studying Sufism, and in particular Rumi", so says the back cover on who the protagonist is. Having discovered Rumi rather late in life and getting drunk on him ever since, the pull was too strong to resist and back it came with me from the last trip to the library.The...
Pico Iyer might be the most difficult contemporary writer to summarize or review. a product of Eton, Oxford (Double First Class degree) and Harvard, he might very well have a 180 I.Q. one is intimidated by his intellect and academic training. Time Magazine. 10 cover stories. anything you write ab...
Iyer in his introduction tells us this is “less like a conventional travel diary than a series of essays” of a “casual traveler’s casual observations” of the Asia he saw “over the course of two years... [spending] a total of seven months crisscrossing the continent.” Each chapter covers his thoug...
A weakly plotted romantic story showcases Iyer's skills as a travel writer and demonstrates that writing travelogues and writing fiction are two different things.The portraits of the Cubans and their night life are vibrant and sad and those of the foreigners, including the author's first person p...
“The Juche idea means that we should believe in our own strength, we are the masters of our destiny,” my guide was telling me, choosing to ignore, for the moment, his country’s patrons in Moscow and Beijing. “Even the South Koreans love our president Kim Il Sung,” he continued, naming his country...
And though he is most celebrated around the world these days for his ability to talk to halls large enough to stage a Bon Jovi concert, his special strength is to address twenty thousand people—Buddhists and grandmothers and kids alike—as if he were talking to each one alone, in the language she ...
Below—ten stories below—I could make out round-faced women in ponchos standing on the sidewalk of the city named for peace and renting out cellphones to passersby. At their sides, sisters (or could it be daughters?) were sitting next to mountainous piles of books, mostly advising pedestrians on h...
The minute I set foot in Taiwan, I was assaulted by smells, sultry, piquant, and strange: assaulted, too, by spitters and shouters, by offers, importunities, cries of “Why you no buy? Best price for you!” Waiters dropped plates on my table as if they were hot (which they never were), men whispere...
He could not sleep at night, and neither could his family for his constant cries of pain. THE MOMENT WAS tense; a group of well-dressed dignitaries had assembled in the imperial palace. The country was in the midst of crisis; turbulence was all around. Then, suddenly, out into the center of the h...