Pico Iyer’s new The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise

January 15, 2023

Internationally-acclaimed writer Pico Iyer has just released The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise. This new collection of essays recounts visits to remarkable places as only Pico can, exploring ideas of utopia and personal peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering.

Check out this week’s recent reviews of The Half Known Life in NPRThe New York Times, and The Financial Times.  You can also find out more from Pico’s facebook and Twitter feeds, including details of a small handful of live personal appearances in support of the book.

We’re especially looking forward to Pico’s upcoming conversation this Wednesday night with Don George, which will also be broadcast live and online for those unable to attend in person.

If you are near Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA. don’t miss a chance to see Pico and Don this Wednesday night. If you can’t make it to Book Passage in person, join the session live online. It’s sure to be a good one.

Visit bookpassage.com for more information about Wednesday night’s live event – and get the book there, too.

Check out Pico’s personal invitations to  Five Things I’ve Learned about the Art of Stillness,  Five Things I’ve Learned about the Art of Interview and Deepening the Creative Flowand Don George’s class, Five Things I’ve Learned about How to Be a Travel Writer at myfivethings.com

Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer is the host of the “Speaking with Pico” series in Santa Barbara, regularly conducts interviews for the City Arts and Lectures series in San Francisco and, over 25 years, has conducted intimate onstage conversations with everyone from Philip Glass to Zadie Smith and from Martin Scorsese to Ireland’s President Mary Robinson.

Since 1982 he has been a full-time writer, publishing 15 books, translated into 23 languages, on subjects ranging from the Dalai Lama to globalism, from the Cuban Revolution to Islamic mysticism. They include such long-running sellers as Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul, The Open Road and The Art of Stillness. His most recent release, The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise is a collection of essaysthat recount visits to remarkable places as only Pico can, exploring ideas of utopia and personal peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. He has also written the introductions to more than 70 other books, as well as liner and program notes, a screenplay for Miramax and a libretto. At the same time he has been writing up to 100 articles a year for Time, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, the Financial Times and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide.

His four talks for TED have received more than 10 million views so far.

Since 1992 he has spent much of his time at a Benedictine hermitage in Big Sur, California, and most of the rest in suburban Japan.

Five Things I've Learned About

The Art of the Interview

Join acclaimed writers and interviewers Pico Iyer and Michael Shapiro, and discover the Five Things They’ve Learned from experience about the Art of the Interview.

Presented in partnership with Book Passage

Pico Iyer and Michael Shapiro

Five Things I've Learned About

The Art of the Interview

Join acclaimed writers and interviewers Pico Iyer and Michael Shapiro, and discover the Five Things They’ve Learned from experience about the Art of the Interview.

Presented in partnership with Book Passage

Five Things I've Learned About

The Art of Stillness

Join internationally-acclaimed writer Pico Iyer and discover the Five Things He’s Learned about opening up space in our heads, and in our days.

Presented in partnership with Book Passage

Pico Iyer

Five Things I've Learned About

The Art of Stillness

Join internationally-acclaimed writer Pico Iyer and discover the Five Things He’s Learned about opening up space in our heads, and in our days.

Presented in partnership with Book Passage

Five Things I've Learned About

Deepening the Creative Flow

Join acclaimed writers and interviewers Pico Iyer and Michael Shapiro, and discover the Five Things They’ve Learned from their own experience — and from the experience of the many creative figures they’ve met — about cultivating and deepening the creative flow.

Presented in partnership with Book Passage

Pico Iyer and Michael Shapiro

Five Things I've Learned About

Deepening the Creative Flow

Join acclaimed writers and interviewers Pico Iyer and Michael Shapiro, and discover the Five Things They’ve Learned from their own experience — and from the experience of the many creative figures they’ve met — about cultivating and deepening the creative flow.

Presented in partnership with Book Passage

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