Most Popular Books by Pico Iyer

At dawn I wake up to bells . . . red-tailed hawks above the golden pampas grass and the great, still blue plate of the Pacific far below . . . Many places offer you beauty, grandeur, spaciousness; none but Big Sur, in my experience, tells you so powerfully that all those blessings lie within. —Pico Iyer on Big Sur, California Some places move us at a profound level—with a kind of inner beauty that puts us in direct touch with the spirit. It might be a temple, a church, a monument, a wayside shrine, or a landscape feature that is saturated in the ambience of ancient sacred traditions. Such places are worth taking the trouble to visit. They add meaning to our lives, awakening a sense of beauty, tranquility or awe. From the prehistoric megaliths of Carnac in Brittany to the Buddhist temple complex of Borobodur in Java, from the giant medicine wheel at Bighorn, Wyoming in the USA to the Confucian Temple of Heaven in Beijing, this book will guide you on a journey to 100 of the world’s most spiritually uplifting sites. Accompanying the superb photographs are evocative descriptions of each place, many from esteemed writers who share their personal responses in their own inimitable style. Read Joseph Williams III on Pipestone in Minnesota, Jan Morris on Croagh Patrick in County Mayo, Michael Ondaatje on the Arankale Forest Monastery in Sri Lanka, and more. And if you wish to seek out these places for yourself, there is a helpful gazetteer at the back of the book giving key facts for visitors. By immersing ourselves in those special places where landscape, art, and spirit meet in a radiant intersection, we enlarge our perspective on life. This book gives us the inspiration and knowledge to do so.

Il paradiso: giardino incantato, dimora finale, miraggio di eterna beatitudine. Ma cos''è davvero, e soprattutto dove si trova? Pico Iyer si propone di rispondere a queste domande impossibili con una ricerca possibile: si mette sulle tracce del paradiso non seguendo evanescenti traiettorie celesti, bensí esplorando questo nostro mondo, dall''Iran al Giappone, dal Kashmir alla Corea, da Gerusalemme allo Sri Lanka, da Belfast a Varanasi. Tra monumenti sacri millenari, territori attraversati da profondi conflitti religiosi, orizzonti mistici, Pico Iyer compie un personalissimo pellegrinaggio che illumina il paradiso in tutta la sua straordinaria, quotidiana, umana semplicità. «Una vera e propria visita guidata nell''animo umano... Un capolavoro». Elizabeth Gilbert «Un libro di viaggi interiori raccontati attraverso straordinari luoghi esteriori». «The Washington Post» Si può ancora contemplare la speranza di un paradiso oggi? Ma cos''è davvero il paradiso, e soprattutto dove si trova? Pico Iyer si propone di rispondere a queste domande impossibili con una ricerca possibile: si mette sulle sue tracce non seguendo evanescenti traiettorie celesti, bensí esplorando questo nostro mondo, dall''Iran al Giappone, dal Kashmir alla Corea, da Gerusalemme allo Sri Lanka, da Belfast a Varanasi. Entra in chiese, mo- schee, templi, interroga statue del Buddha e tombe di poeti, si immerge tra i vicoli delle città vecchie e costeggia le rive del Gange, visita il Santo Sepolcro e il Museo della rivoluzione islamica. In ogni luogo Iyer dà vita a straordinari affreschi sinestetici in cui odori, rumori, sapori si mescolano a meraviglie architettoniche, ai racconti delle persone che incontra, a un oceanico sentimento di sacralità. In questo affascinante vagabondare spirituale, Iyer raggiunge di volta in volta la meta prefissata, con il sospetto di non essersene mai allontanato: perché forse il paradiso non fluttua in un vento etereo, né ha la forma di uno spazio delimitato da confini precisi, ma assomiglia piuttosto a una particolare dimensione interiore che esiste in ognuno di noi. La vita a metà conosciuta è un diario di viaggio unico, un inno a un particolare modo dell''essere, radicato nel rispetto profondo per ciò che non si conosce, nella capacità di mettere in discussione ciò che si crede di conoscere, e nel desiderio di conoscere sempre di piú, del mondo, di noi stessi e degli altri.

''Nothing less than a guided tour of the human soul ... A masterpiece'' Elizabeth Gilbert ''A work of spiritual evolution [and] inner journeys told through extraordinary exteriors'' Washington Post One of our most perceptive travel writers embarks on an exploration of the world''s holiest places and where we might find paradise on Earth. It''s so easy, I thought, to place Paradise in the past or the future – anywhere but here. After half a century of travel, Pico Iyer asks himself what kind of paradise can ever be found in a world of unceasing conflict. In a spectacular journey, both inward and outward, he roams the globe from Jerusalem to Belfast to North Korea, from crowded mosques in Iran to a holy mountain in Japan. By the end, he has upended any of our expectations and dared to suggest that we can find paradise right in the heart of our angry and confused world.

De mai bine de trei decenii, Pico Iyer, unul dintre cei mai apreciați autori de cărți de călătorie, este prieten cu Dalai Lama. Pe parcursul acestor ani, prin intermediul unor conversații intime, a ajuns să îl cunoască așa cum doar puțini se pot lăuda că îl știu. În paginile acestei cărți, Iyer realizează un portret unic al uneia dintre cele mai insolite personalități a timpului nostru, explicând ideile și activitatea lui Dalai Lama despre politică, știință, tehnologie și religie. Acest volum nu este o biografie, ci o analiză jurnalistică extinsă despre o persoană care a adunat înțelepciune cât pentru mai multe vieți, așa cum cred budiștii tibetani. Iyer își organizează observațiile prin descrieri inteligente ale diferitelor aspecte ale activității și personalității lui Dalai Lama: personalitate, călugăr, filosof, politician. Aceasta îi permite să sondeze diverse laturi ale Sfinției Sale, Iyer reamintind cititorilor de anumite paradoxuri: Dalai Lama este profund empiric și, cu toate acestea, are convingeri, precum reîncarnarea, care desfid observația. Este o persoană publică, dar la fel de mult este extrem de implicat în practicile religioase elaborate. Scopul acestei cărți este, în cele din urmă, simplu: să ni-l prezinte pe omul Dalai Lama.

''Beautiful . . . Iyer masterfully and lyrically shows us how we may need to find a new home - one far more solemn, communal and silent than our present one - in order to return properly to ourselves'' Alain de Botton ''I trust that reading this book may help many to lead lives of greater compassion and deeper peace of mind'' His Holiness the Dalai Lama ''One of the most soulful and perceptive writers of our time'' Maria Popova ''An exquisite call to silence and the myriad connections it kindles'' Katherine May From the bestselling author of The Art of Stillness, a revelatory exploration of the abiding clarity and calm to be found in quiet retreat Over the past three decades, Pico Iyer has made more than a hundred journeys to a small hermitage high above the sea in Big Sur, California. He''s not a Christian, nor a member of any religious group, and yet his life has been transformed by these periods of time spent in silence. In Learning from Silence, Iyer travels deep into inner stillness and joy in his many seasons at the monastery, even as his life is going through constant change: houses burn, a parent dies, a daughter is diagnosed with cancer. He shares the revelations he experiences, alongside wisdom from other non-monastics who have learned from adversity and inwardness. Most profoundly, he shows how solitude can be a training in community and companionship. In so doing, he offers a unique outsider''s view of monastic life - and of a group of selfless souls who have dedicated their days to ensuring there''s a space for quiet and recollection that''s open to us all. Radiant, intimate and gripping, Learning from Silence offers ageless counsel about the power of silence and what it can teach us about how to live, how to love and, ultimately, how to die.

A moving meditation on love, loss and the seasons of life, illuminated by four plays from William Shakespeare. When Pico Iyer’s mother enters the final years of her life, he finds himself confronting the most universal of questions: how do we care for those we love as they fade and how do we live with the knowledge that we will follow? Drawing on a lifetime of reading, Iyer turns to Shakespeare, not as scholarship, but as guide. Revisiting the playwright’s comedies, tragedies and romances, he finds constant surprises in what they reveal to him in the autumn of his life. Might King Lear in fact be a handbook to caregiving? Could Romeo and Juliet be a play as much about parents as young lovers? Is there hope even near the end of life? There’ll never, in any existence, be a shortage of storms and sorrows, but for all the arrival of new challenges, Iyer reminds us of ‘messengers in white’ – acts of sudden kindness, moments of rebirth that startle us even in the dark. One beauty of the cycling seasons is that every autumn brings us back towards the spring. Tender and searching, The Messenger in White is a deeply personal meditation on how we remember, how we love, how we grieve, and how we might live meaningfully in the face of loss.

The artist combines wide-angle photographs of landscapes from throughout the world that exhibit fundamental, formal similarities and rhythms by connecting them with a common horizon line.

A book about Santa Barbara, California

Een Engelstalig journalist van Indiase afkomst beschrijft aan de hand van zijn ervaringen in Azië de culturele invloed van het Westen op de mensen daar.