Autumn light : season of fire and farewells / Pico Iyer.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2019Edition: First editionDescription: 235 pages ; 22 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780451493934
- 0451493931
- 9781101973462 :
Item type | Current library | Collection | Shelving location | Call number | Status | Notes | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book | Phillipsburg Free Public Library | Adult Non-Fiction | Adult Non-Fiction | 952.184 IYE | Available | pap ed. | 36748002513879 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Returning to his longtime home in Japan after his father-in-law's sudden death, Pico Iyer picks up the steadying patterns of his everyday rites: going to the post office and engaging in furious games of ping-pong every evening. But in a country whose calendar is marked with occasions honoring the dead, he comes to reflect on changelessness in ways that anyone can relate to: parents age, children scatter, and Iyer and his wife turn to whatever can sustain them as everything falls away. As the maple leaves begin to turn and the heat begins to soften, Iyer shows us a Japan we have seldom seen before, where the transparent and the mysterious are held in a delicate balance, and where autumn reminds us to take nothing for granted.
"This is a Borzoi book"--Title page verso.
"From one of our most astute observers of human nature, a far-reaching exploration of Japanese history and culture and a moving meditation on impermanence, mortality, and grief. For years, Pico Iyer has split his time between California and Nara, Japan, where he and his Japanese wife Hiroko have a small home. But when his father-in-law dies suddenly, calling him back to Japan earlier than expected, Iyer begins to grapple with the question we all have to live with: how to hold onto the things we love, even though we know that we and they are dying. In a country whose calendar is marked with occasions honoring the dead, this question is more urgent than anywhere else. Iyer leads us through the year following his father-in-law's death, introducing us to the people who populate his days: his ailing mother-in-law, who often forgets that her husband has died; his absent brother-in-law, who severed ties with his family years ago but to whom Hiroko still writes letters; and the men and women in his ping pong club, who, many years his senior, traverse their autumn years in different ways. And as the maple leaves begin to redden and the heat begins to soften, Iyer offers us a singular view of Japan, in the season that reminds us to take nothing for granted"-- Provided by publisher.