The Global Soul

Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home

Nonfiction, Travel, Adventure & Literary Travel
Cover of the book The Global Soul by Pico Iyer, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Pico Iyer ISBN: 9780307764638
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Publication: August 31, 2011
Imprint: Vintage Language: English
Author: Pico Iyer
ISBN: 9780307764638
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication: August 31, 2011
Imprint: Vintage
Language: English

Pico Iyer has for many years described with keen perception and exacting wit the shifting textures of faraway lands anchored on a spinning globe that mixes and matches East and West. Now he casts a philosophical eye upon this curious state of floatingness.

In the transnational village that our world has become, travel and technology fuel each other and us. As Iyer points out, "everywhere is so made up of everywhere else," and our very souls have been put into circulation. Yet even global beings need a home.

Using his own multicultural upbringing (Indian, American, British) as a point of departure, Iyer sets out on a quest, both physical and psychological, to find what remains constant in a world gone mobile. He begins in Los Angeles International Airport, where town life — shops, services, sociability — is available without a town, and in Hong Kong, where people actually live in self-contained hotels. He moves on to Toronto, which has been given new life and a new literature by its immigrant population, and to Atlanta, where the Olympic Village inadvertently commemorates the corporate universalism that is the Olympics' secret face. And, finally, he returns to England, where the effects of empire-as-global-village are still being sorted out, and to Japan, where in the midst of alien surfaces, Iyer unexpectedly finds a home.

"As a guide to far-flung places, Pico Iyer can hardly be surpassed," The New Yorker has written. In The Global Soul, he extends the meaning of far-flung to places within and all around us.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Pico Iyer has for many years described with keen perception and exacting wit the shifting textures of faraway lands anchored on a spinning globe that mixes and matches East and West. Now he casts a philosophical eye upon this curious state of floatingness.

In the transnational village that our world has become, travel and technology fuel each other and us. As Iyer points out, "everywhere is so made up of everywhere else," and our very souls have been put into circulation. Yet even global beings need a home.

Using his own multicultural upbringing (Indian, American, British) as a point of departure, Iyer sets out on a quest, both physical and psychological, to find what remains constant in a world gone mobile. He begins in Los Angeles International Airport, where town life — shops, services, sociability — is available without a town, and in Hong Kong, where people actually live in self-contained hotels. He moves on to Toronto, which has been given new life and a new literature by its immigrant population, and to Atlanta, where the Olympic Village inadvertently commemorates the corporate universalism that is the Olympics' secret face. And, finally, he returns to England, where the effects of empire-as-global-village are still being sorted out, and to Japan, where in the midst of alien surfaces, Iyer unexpectedly finds a home.

"As a guide to far-flung places, Pico Iyer can hardly be surpassed," The New Yorker has written. In The Global Soul, he extends the meaning of far-flung to places within and all around us.

More books from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Cover of the book Three Blind Mice by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book Reveille for Radicals by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book Don't Cry by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book The Color of Night by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book The Sleepwalkers by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book Feminism by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book Where the Suckers Moon by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book Women's Work by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book The Queen Mother by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book The Writer and the World by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book Nobody's Perfect by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book Dark Age Ahead by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book The Noble Hustle by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book The Best American Crime Writing: 2003 Edition by Pico Iyer
Cover of the book What's Not to Love? by Pico Iyer
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy