Search results for ""author pico iyer""

We cherish things, Japan has always known, precisely because they cannot last; it's their frailty that adds sweetness to their beauty. Returning to his home in Japan after his father-in-law's sudden death, Pico Iyer soon picks up the steadying patterns of his everyday rites: going to the post office in the day and engaging in spirited games of ping-pong in the evenings. But in a country whose calendar is marked with occasions honouring the dead, he soon finds himself grappling with the question we all have to live with: how to hold on to the things we love even though we know that they – and we – are dying. As the maple leaves begin to turn and the heat starts to soften, Iyer shows us a Japan we have seldom seen before through the season that reminds us to take nothing for granted.

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'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.

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Winner of the Edward Stanford Travel Memoir of the Year 2020 How does a sushi bar explain a Japanese poem? Why do Japanese couples plan matching outfits for their honeymoon? Why are so many things in Japan the opposite of what we expect? After thirty-two years in Japan, Pico Iyer knows the country as few others can. In A Beginner's Guide to Japan, he dashes from baseball games to love-hotels and from shopping malls to zen temple gardens to find fresh ways of illuminating his adopted home. Playful and surreptitiously profound, this is a guidebook to a Japan few have ever seen before. 'Rarely in any writing on Japan is provocation so elegantly and surgically performed' Financial Times

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The Maya of Central America created one of the most dazzling civilizations on this earth, which is often compared to Ancient Greece. The Maya had a delight in creation, expressed in art, architecture, pottery, astronomy, mathematics and mythology, all combined with a deep, metaphysical fascination with time. This civilization seems to have collapsed in the ninth century, some five hundred years before the Spanish conquest of America. Ronald Wright travelled through the old territories of the Maya (the jungles and mountains of Guatemala, Belize and Mexico) to explore the ancient roots of their culture and to map out what has survived. Despite civil wars and centuries of oppression by first an Hispanic, then Mestizo culture, he discovers a region where seven million people still speak Mayan languages and struggle to maintain their resilient, indigenous culture. It is at once a riveting journey, written with wit and wisdom, but also a study of a civilization. It is travel writing at its broadest and its best.

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Lost Worlds: Ruins of the Americas is a unique visual exploration that vividly captures the haunting mystery and visual poetry of historic ruins throughout the Americas. This extraordinary collection perfectly portrays the architectural, geographic and historical significance of ruins that are considered world wonders and also little known gems. Included are monumental temples of Mexico's Mayan civilization, a Colonial era palace on the island of Haiti, earthquake-ravaged cathedrals in Guatemala, and astonishing Incan citadels in Peru's Sacred Valley - culminating with the breathtaking beauty of Machu Picchu. This unprecedented publication transports the reader on a journey to ancient temples, abandoned palaces and lofty citadels. Evocative and enlightening, Lost Worlds will stir the imagination of those with a passion for photography, travel, history, architecture, and archaeology. Shot in infra red format on a specially adapted digital camera, these images expose crumbling, overgrown walls, broken columns, and cracked arches in ways most readers have never seen. They will offer readers a new way of viewing the landscape as well as an enhanced vision of the collective identity of the Americas. Includes a foreword by noted travel writer Pico Iyer and text by Arthur Drooker explaining each site's rise, fall and lasting significance. Published to accompany a travelling exhibition in the USA opening at the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, DC., and touring a further seven venues.

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The complete stories of a 20th century master of fictionAffairs, obsessions, ardors, fantasy, myth, legends, dreams, fear, pity, and violence—this magnificent collection of stories illuminates all corners of the human experience. Including four previously uncollected stories, this new complete edition reveals Graham Greene in a range of contrasting moods, sometimes cynical and witty, sometimes searching and philosophical. Each of these forty-nine stories confirms V. S. Pritchett’s declaration that Greene is “a master of storytelling.” This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by Pico Iyer.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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'A subtle distillation of wisdom, stylistic grace and symmetry of form' Sunday Times 'It's hard to think of a more recent novel that has sung so eloquently the joys of being alone' Guardian An inspirational classic from Nobel Prize-winner Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha is a beautiful tale of self-discovery Dissatisfied with the ways of life he has experienced, Siddhartha, the handsome son of a Brahmin, leaves his family and his friend, Govinda, in search of a higher state of being. Having experienced the myriad forms of existence, from immense wealth and luxury to the pleasures of sensual and paternal love, Siddhartha finally settles down beside a river, where a humble ferryman teaches him his most valuable lesson yet. Hermann Hesse's short, elegant novel, echoing the life of the Buddha, has been cherished by readers for decades as an unforgettable spiritual primer. A tender and unforgettable moral allegory, it is an undeniable classic of modern literature. Part of the Pushkin Press Classics series: timeless storytelling by icons of literature, hand-picked from around the globe Translated by Hilda Rosner Hermann Hesse (1877-1963) is counted among the leading novelists and thinkers of the twentieth century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1946 for a body of literature renowned for its humanist, philosophical and spiritual insight. His most famous works include Siddhartha, Journey to the East, Demian, Steppenwolf, and Narcissus and Goldmund.

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The first major publication dedicated to one of Norway's most important photographers Working in a signature modulating gray scale, the late Norwegian photographer Tom Sandberg spent decades rendering the world according to an exacting vision, training his eye on the shapes and forms of the everyday—dark abstractions of asphalt and sea, the hard edges of an automobile, an ominously curved tunnel, an anonymous figure casting a shadow—to plumb the nature of photographic seeing. His pictures are subtle yet transformative, studies of stillness that radiate mystery. A perfectionist in the darkroom, Sandberg was acutely sensitive to the rich spectrum of black and white, and his handmade prints, at times printed on aluminum and canvas, project a powerful physical presence. Although Sandberg is esteemed in his native Norway and throughout Scandinavia and Europe, his oeuvre is less known in the United States and other parts of the world. This monograph, produced in close collaboration with the Tom Sandberg Foundation in Oslo, is a long-overdue celebration of this distinguished artist.

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Many ‘model’ cities, both imagined and physical, have existed throughout history; from the ideal cities of the Renaissance, Urbino, Pienza and Ferrara, to modernist utopias, such as Brasília or Chandigarh. North Korea’s Pyongyang, however, is arguably unique. Entirely rebuilt following the Korean War (1950–53), the city was planned and fully implemented to model a single ideological vision – a guide for an entire state. As a result, the urban fabric of Pyongyang displays an extraordinary architectural cohesion and narrative, artfully captured in the pages of this book. In recent years, many of Pyongyang’s buildings have been redeveloped to remove interior features or to render façades unrecognizable. From the city’s monumental axes to its symbolic sports halls and experimental housing concepts, this timely book offers comprehensive visual access to Pyongyang’s restricted buildings, which still preserve the DPRK’s original vision for a city designed ‘for the people’. Often kitsch, colourful and dramatic, Pyongyang’s architecture can be reminiscent of the aesthetic of a Wes Anderson film, where it is difficult to distinguish between reality and theatre. Reflecting a culture that has carefully crafted its own narrative, the backdrop of each photograph has been replaced with a colour gradient, evoking the idealized pastel skies of the country’s propaganda posters.

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