MMM's Book of the Month Club: The Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer

Friday, December 1, 2017

The Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer has emerged as one of my favorite writers and speakers, and he's an inspiration for me in both areas. He writes about travel, but in a cerebral way that gets readers to think about what they are thinking about while they are traveling. The book I'm recommending this month is a little one by Iyer from the TED Original series: The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere.

It might seem counter-intuitive for a travel writer to write about going nowhere,

but not for Iyer. He's not walled up in a tiny hut like Hildegard of Bingen. He actually goes places and sees people but more for meditation than sightseeing. He's exploring his mind rather than unfamiliar scenery and terrain.

I found myself recently craving literal 'stillness' because of a painful bruise on my side that I acquired during a slapstick-worthy fall. I read Iyer's short book about Stillness while I was being still. How clever am I? I thought of other kinds of stillness: I decided not to travel this year. I've been traveling a lot lately and I want a year to be home and still. I want to think about where I've been and mindfully write about the experiences and what I learned and what I was thinking about. Of course that's not literal stillness, but I kind of stillness of the mind. I took a couple of walks over Thanksgiving weekend, before I took the epic tumble, and I found myself thinking about where I was walking, what I was seeing, and my memories of those places with no distractions or worries from my everyday life. I had a Thanksgiving dinner to prepare, assignments to grade, and a hundred other things to do, but I was nicely focused on my walks. I was in the moment.

And then I read the little Pico Iyer book and thought about all these ways to be still and how important they are as I was sitting as still as possible. And I was still as I contemplated the gentle photos by Icelandic photographer Eydis S. Luna Einarsdóttir which separate each of the book's sections. You may be thinking that I've spoiled the fun of reading a short book like this meant to be read in one sitting (according to TED). I haven't, really. TED wouldn't have any thing to do with puny ideas that could be spoiled in a simple blogpost, and there's no way my words could come close to stirring up your mind as Pico Iyer's words will. So read this worthwhile book, and watch this worthwhile companion talk:

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MMM's Book of the Month Club

Remember when we still read books made of paper and there were these clubs where you could get a new book sent to your doorstep every month? "If you don't want this month's book, send the card back with the appropriate box checked. If you do want the book, do nothing. It will appear in your mailbox at the beginning of the month." I used to be in the Quality Paperback Book Club and was exposed to some great books that way. For a while I was in a craft book club, and back in grad school in the 1980s I was in a classical record club that operated the same way. A person could accumulate a quality library this way.

This bookofthemonth club will work differently: I'm not sending books out to readers, but I will tell you about the best books I read. I read a lot of books because I love reading, and I read a lot of books because I'm a writer. I read many travel books, or more precisely books about place, so those will probably appear here. I read many other genres, too, and as a librarian and known book lover I recommend books to readers frequently.

Maybe you won't be interested in every book I recommend, but I hope you will check in to this book blog at the beginning of each month to see what I've got for you. It might be old or new, nonfiction or fiction, or it could be from some other genre. You'll be surprised.