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The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere Audiobook
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A follow up to Pico Iyer’s essay “The Joy of Quiet,” The Art of Stillness considers the unexpected adventure of staying put and reveals a counterintuitive truth: The more ways we have to connect, the more we seem desperate to unplug.
Why might a lifelong traveler like Pico Iyer, who has journeyed from Easter Island to Ethiopia, Cuba to Kathmandu, think that sitting quietly in a room might be the ultimate adventure? Because in our madly accelerating world, our lives are crowded, chaotic and noisy. There’s never been a greater need to slow down, tune out and give ourselves permission to be still.
In The Art of Stillness—a TED Books release—Iyer investigate the lives of people who have made a life seeking stillness: from Matthieu Ricard, a Frenchman with a PhD in molecular biology who left a promising scientific career to become a Tibetan monk, to revered singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, who traded the pleasures of the senses for several years of living the near-silent life of meditation as a Zen monk. Iyer also draws on his own experiences as a travel writer to explore why advances in technology are making us more likely to retreat. He 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 seeking silent retreats. These aren't New Age fads so much as ways to rediscover the wisdom of an earlier age. Growing trends like observing an “Internet Sabbath”—turning off online connections from Friday night to Monday morning—highlight how increasingly desperate many of us are to unplug and bring stillness into our lives.
The Art of Stillness paints a picture of why so many—from Marcel Proust to Mahatma Gandhi to Emily Dickinson—have found richness in stillness. Ultimately, Iyer shows that, in this age of constant movement and connectedness, perhaps staying in one place is a more exciting prospect, and a greater necessity than ever before.
In 2013, Pico Iyer gave a blockbuster TED Talk. This lyrical and inspiring book expands on a new idea, offering a way forward for all those feeling affected by the frenetic pace of our modern world.
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“Offering stillness as a way to find clarity, sanity, and the joys that endure, an essayist reads his thoughtful book with spellbinding emotional presence. His cadence and vocal tone sound so connected to the core of his message that it’s hard to imagine any listener not being touched by the experience of hearing him. With soft and spare writing, he makes the point that our schedules and electronic devices allow us no time off, no relief from the external and ephemeral joys of modern life. These are ideas that seem broader than those promoting any religious or psychological approach to living fully. And as a two-hour listening experience, the author’s commitment and immersion in these ideas will move many listeners to consider the stillness he describes.”
— AudioFile
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“[A] cool drink of water, in book form.”
— People -
“In lesser hands this tiny volume might be a throwaway of glib, “new age” comfort-speak, but like Henry David Thoreau’s equally brief classic on another seemingly mundane exercise—walking—Iyer’s thoughtful nature leads him to peel back layer upon layer, nodding toward the infinite…. Plunging effortlessly beneath platitudes, this wafer-thin volume reminds us of what might just be the greatest paradox of travel—after all our road running, after all our flights of fancy to the farthest corners of the globe, after all our touring, our seeking, and questing, perhaps, just perhaps, fellow travelers, there really is no place like home.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“A bustling paean to the stationary life…Iyer’s argument is an engaging amalgam of memoir, reportage, and literary essay…Iyer uses a fluid blend of argument and anecdote to make a persuasive and eloquent case that contemplating internal landscapes can be just as rich an experience as traveling through external ones. The fact that he has traveled to some of the world’s most obscure corners only strengthens his credibility as a defender of stillness.”
— Boston Globe -
“[A] beautiful little book…fills an important niche…Iyer wants to make the conscious practice of stillness palatable to everyone.”
— Los Angeles Review of Books -
“A heartfelt manifesto to the benefits of ditching the cellphone and snipping up the frequent flier card.”
— Associated Press -
“This book isn’t a meditation guide or a New-Age tract but rather a celebration of the age-old practice of sitting with no goal in mind and no destination in sight…Rather than reading it quickly and filing it, readers will likely slow down to meet its pace and might continue carrying it around as a reminder.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
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About Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer is the acclaimed and bestselling author of more than a dozen books, translated into twenty-three languages. His journalism has appeared in Time, the New York Times, New York Review of Books, the London Financial Times, and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide. His TED talks have been viewed over eleven million times. He divides his time between Japan and a Benedictine hermitage in California.