Pico Iyer Livres

The book delves into the transformative power of silence through Pico Iyer's experiences at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur, California. Over three decades and amidst personal upheavals, including loss and illness, Iyer discovers profound joy and clarity in quiet retreat. He reflects on deeper truths often overlooked in daily life and shares insights from others who have found strength in solitude. By exploring the intersection of silence, community, and personal growth, the narrative offers timeless wisdom on living, loving, and facing mortality.

Kip, the emotionally detached Indian sapper - each is haunted in different ways by the man they know only as the English patient, a nameless burn victim who lies in an upstairs room. and also of forbidden love, suffering and betrayal - illuminate the story, and leave all the characters for ever changed.

Journey thru a hidden land. Where is the real Japan?

We all carry other people inside our heads - actors, leaders, writers, people from history or fiction, met or unmet, who sometimes seem closer to us than people we know. In The Man Within My Head, Pico Iyer sets out to unravel the mysterious closeness he has always felt with the writer Graham Greene: he examines Greene's obsessions, his life on the road, his penchant for mystery. Iyer follows Greene's trail from his first novel, The Man Within, to such later classics as The Quiet American and begins to unpack all they have in common: a typical old-school education, a lifelong restlessness and refusal to make a home anywhere, a fascination with the complications of faith. The deeper Iyer plunges into their haunted kinship, however, the more he begins to wonder whether the man within his head is not Greene but his own father, or perhaps some more shadowy aspect of himself. Drawing upon experiences across the globe, from Cuba to Bhutan, and moving, as Greene would, from Sri Lanka at war to intimate moments of introspection; trying to make sense of his own past, commuting between the cloisters of a fifteenth-century boarding school and California in the 1960s, one of our most resourceful cultural explorers gives us his most personal and revelatory book yet, and one of the best new portraits of Greene himself.

"Earns its place on the very short shelf of books on Japan that are of permanent value."— Times Literary Supplement. "Richie is a stupendous travel writer; the book shines with bright witticisms, deft characterizations of fisherfolk, merchants, monks and wistful adolescents, and keen comparisons of Japanes and Western culture." — San Francisco Chronicle "A learned, beautifully paced elegy."— London Review of Books Sheltered between Japan’s major islands lies the Inland Sea, a place modernity passed by. In this classic travel memoir, Donald Richie embarks on a quest to find Japan’s timeless heart among its mysterious waters and forgotten islands. This edition features an introduction by Pico Iyer, photographs from the award-winning PBS documentary, and a new afterword. First published in 1971, The Inland Sea is a lucid, tender voyage of discovery and self-revelation. Donald Richie is the foremost authority on Japanese culture and cinema with 40+ books in print.

In this “exquisite personal blend of philosophy and engagement, inner quiet and worldly life" (Los Angeles Times), an acclaimed author returns to his longtime home in Japan after his father-in-law’s sudden death and picks up the steadying patterns of his everyday rites, reminding us to take nothing for granted. In a country whose calendar is marked with occasions honoring the dead, Pico Iyer comes to reflect on changelessness in ways that anyone can relate to: parents age, children scatter, and Iyer and his wife turn to whatever can sustain them as everything falls away. As the maple leaves begin to turn and the heat begins to soften, Iyer shows us a Japan we have seldom seen before, where the transparent and the mysterious are held in a delicate balance.

Pico Iyer has been engaged in conversation with the Dalai Lama (a friend of his father's) for the last three decades-a continuing exploration of his message and its effectiveness. Now, in this insightful, impassioned book, Iyer captures the paradoxes of the Dalai Lama's position- though he has brought the ideas of Tibet to world attention, Tibet itself is being remade as a Chinese province; though he was born in one of the most remote, least developed places on earth, he has become a champion of globalism and technology. He is a religious leader who warns against being needlessly distracted by religion; a Tibetan head of state who suggests that exile from Tibet can be an opportunity; an incarnation of a Tibetan god who stresses his everyday humanity. Moving from Dharamsala, India-the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile-to Lhasa, Tibet, to venues in the West where the Dalai Lama's pragmatism, rigour, and scholarship are sometimes lost on an audience yearning for mystical visions, The Open Road illuminates the hidden life, the transforming ideas, and the daily challenges of a global icon.

Mohawk hair-cuts in Bali, yuppies in Hong Kong and Rambo rip-offs in the movie houses of Bombay are just a few of the jarring images that Iyer brings back from the Far East.

When Pico Iyer decided to go to Kyoto and live in a monastery, he did so to learn about Zen Buddhism from the inside, to get to know Kyoto, one of the loveliest old cities in the world, and to find out something about Japanese culture today -- not the world of businessmen and production lines, but the traditional world of changing seasons and the silence of temples, of the images woven through literature, of the lunar Japan that still lives on behind the rising sun of geopolitical power.All this he did. And then he met Sachiko.Vivacious, attractive, thoroughly educated, speaking English enthusiastically if eccentrically, the wife of a Japanese "salaryman" who seldom left the office before 10 P.M., Sachiko was as conversant with tea ceremony and classical Japanese literature as with rock music, Goethe, and Vivaldi. With the lightness of touch that made Video Night in Kathmandu so captivating, Pico Iyer fashions from their relationship a marvelously ironic yet heartfelt book that is at once a portrait of cross-cultural infatuation -- and misunderstanding -- and a delightfully fresh way of seeing both the old Japan and the very new.

The book features a gripping narrative that explores complex characters and their intertwined fates. Set against a backdrop of rich historical context, it delves into themes of love, betrayal, and resilience. Readers will be drawn into the emotional depth and moral dilemmas faced by the characters, making for a thought-provoking and engaging read. The author's signature style combines vivid imagery with intricate plotting, ensuring a captivating experience from start to finish.

The author draws on readings, reflections, and conversations with Japanese friends to illuminate an unknown place for newcomers, and to give longtime residents a look at their home through fresh eyes. The book is full of glimpses into Japanese culture. Iyer's observations as he travels make for a series of provocations to pique the interest and curiosity of the range of fascinations the country and culture contain

"In The Art of Stillness, Iyer draws on the lives of well-known wanderer-monks like Cohen--as well as from his own experiences as a travel writer who chooses to spend most of his time in rural Japan--to explore why advances in technology are making us more likely to retreat. Iyer reflects that this is perhaps the reason why many people--even those with no religious commitment--seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or tai chi. These aren't New Age fads so much as ways to rediscover the wisdom of an earlier age."--Publisher's description.

Vatanen est journaliste à Helsinki. Alors qu'il revient de la campagne, un dimanche soir de juin, avec un ami, ce dernier heurte un lièvre sur la route. Vatanen descend de voiture et s'enfonce dans les fourrés. Il récupère le lièvre blessé, lui fabrique une grossière attelle et s'enfonce délibérement dans la nature. Ce roman-culte dans les pays nordiques conte les multiples et extravagantes aventures de Vatanen remontant au fil des saisons vers le cercle polaire avec son lièvre fétiche en guise de sésame. Il invente un genre : le roman d'humour écologique.

From the acclaimed author of Video Nights in Kathmandu comes this intriguing new book that deciphers the cultural ramifications of globalization and the rising tide of worldwide displacement. Beginning in Los Angeles International Airport, where town life—shops, services, sociability—is available without a town, Pico Iyer takes us on a tour of the transnational village our world has become. From Hong Kong, where people actually live in self-contained hotels, to Atlanta's Olympic Village, which seems to inadvertently commemorate a sort of corporate universalism, to Japan, where in the midst of alien surfaces his apartment building is called "The Memphis," Iyer ponders what the word "home" can possibly mean in a world whose face is blurred by its cultural fusion and its alarmingly rapid rate of change.

"A journey through competing ideas of paradise to see how we can live more peacefully in an ever more divided and distracted world"-- Provided by publisher

Über den LUXUS der Entschleunigung In einer Welt voller Angebote und Möglichkeiten stellt sich der bekannte Essayist und Autor Pico Iyer dem letzten großen Abenteuer: der Kunst des Innehaltens, der Entschleunigung. Nachdem er selbst ein Leben lang unterwegs war, von den Osterinseln über Katmandu bis Kuba, zeigt er uns, wie wir in einer Welt der ständigen Beschleunigung durch das Innehalten, die Konzentration auf uns selbst, mehr Inspiration, Kreativität und Ausgeglichenheit erreichen können. Denn in einer Welt voller Ablenkung ist der größte Luxus, völlig bei sich zu sein. Mit stimmungsvollen Farbfotografien

Der Flughafen von L. A. als Mikrokosmos, als eine Stadt in der Stadt, Ausgangsort und Ziel von Urlaubern, Emigranten, Geschäftsreisenden aus aller Herren Länder. Pico Iyer hat dort mehrere Wochen gelebt, ebenso in einem „Käfighotel“ in Hongkong, in einer japanischen Kleinstadt und fast überall auf der Welt. In sieben Episoden berichtet er von seinen Reiseerlebnissen und seiner Suche nach dem, was eigentlich Heimat in einer zunehmend vernetzten, immer mobileren Welt bedeutet. Denn die Frage „Wo kommst Du her?“ bedeutet dort nicht mehr das Gleiche wie „Wer bist Du?“. Wenn Pico Iyer sogenannte Businessnomaden in Hongkong besucht, deren Visitenkarten kaum ausreichend Platz für all ihre Adressen bieten, oder ob er sich mit einem fließend Dänisch sprechenden Iraner bei einem Café au lait in der Chinatown in San Francisco unterhält, kommt er mit seinen detailgenauen Beobachtungen zu erstaunlichen Einsichten über das Zusammenleben der verschiedenen Kulturen in einer scheinbar grenzenlosen Welt. Aufgewachsen in den USA und Großbritannien, als Sohn indischer Eltern, mit einem italienischen Vornamen in Japan lebend, personifiziert Pico Iyer selbst diese neue Generation, für die die viel beschworene „Globalisierung“ kein abgenutztes Schlagwort darstellt, sondern bereits Realität geworden ist.

Přečtěte si nečekané vyznání známého novináře o tom, že klid může být jedinečným dobrodružstvím. Pico Iyer tráví život cestováním po celém světě – od Velikonočních ostrovů přes Etiopii, Kubu až po Kátmándú – a reportážemi ze svých cest. Ve své knížce se paradoxně věnuje radosti z poklidu a ticha, na které ho upozornil světoznámý písničkář Leonard Cohen. Inspirovaný jím, ale i Gándhím, Proustem či Emily Dickinsonovou se rozhodl cestovat nikam a najít tak svou vnitřní rovnováhu. Ponořte se do ticha a objevte nový vztah k světu tím, že se od něj odstřihnete.

Nečakané priznanie uznávaného novinára – pokoj môže byť jedinečným dobrodružstvom. Pico Iyer prežil svoj život cestovaním po celom svete – od Veľkonočných ostrovov cez Etiópiu, Kubu až po Káthmandu – a písaním o svojich cestách. V tejto knihe sa paradoxne venuje svojej radosti z pokoja a ticha. „V určitom bode všetky horizontálne cesty celého sveta prestanú dávať zmysel a vy už nebudete túžiť ísť hlbšie, zažívať výzvy a nečakané okamihy, pretože pohyb je najdôležitejší v pokoji. V dobe rýchlosti som si uvedomil, že nič nemôže byť lepšie než spomaliť. V dobe ruchu nemôže byť nič drahšie ako pozornosť. A v dobe neustáleho pohybu nie je nič naliehavejšie než potreba sedieť v tichu.“

Acht verhalen over ervaringen op diverse plaatsen van de wereld.