The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise - Softcover

Iyer, Pico

 
9780593543962: The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593543963 ISBN 13: 9780593543962
Publisher: Random House US, 2023

Synopsis

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

From “one of the most soulful and perceptive writers of our time” (Brain Pickings): a journey through competing ideas of paradise to see how we can live more peacefully in an ever more divided and distracted world.

“Masterful…A book of inner journeys told through extraordinary exteriors…One of his very best.” ―Washington Post

Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles, and burdens of life fall away. Most of us dream of it, but each of us has very different ideas about where it is to be found. For some it can be enjoyed only after death; for others, it’s in our midst―or just across the ocean―if only we can find eyes to see it.

Traveling from Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan, Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and ask how we might find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into warzones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld – or can it be found in the here and now?

For almost fifty years Iyer has been roaming the world, mixing a global soul’s delight in observing cultures with a pilgrim’s readiness to be transformed. In this culminating work, he brings together the outer world and the inner to offer us a surprising, original, often beautiful exploration of how we might come upon paradise in the midst of our very real lives.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

From “one of the most soulful and perceptive writers of our time” (Brain Pickings): a journey through competing ideas of paradise to see how we can live more peacefully in an ever more divided and distracted world.

“Masterful…A book of inner journeys told through extraordinary exteriors…One of his very best.” ―Washington Post

Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles, and burdens of life fall away. Most of us dream of it, but each of us has very different ideas about where it is to be found. For some it can be enjoyed only after death; for others, it’s in our midst―or just across the ocean―if only we can find eyes to see it.

Traveling from Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan, Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and ask how we might find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into warzones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld – or can it be found in the here and now?

For almost fifty years Iyer has been roaming the world, mixing a global soul’s delight in observing cultures with a pilgrim’s readiness to be transformed. In this culminating work, he brings together the outer world and the inner to offer us a surprising, original, often beautiful exploration of how we might come upon paradise in the midst of our very real lives.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Random House US
Publication date
2023
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0593543963
ISBN 13 
9780593543962
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
400

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780593420256: The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  059342025X ISBN 13:  9780593420256
Publisher: Riverhead Books, 2023
Hardcover