The Open Road

“An incisive analysis of the modern relevance of Tibetan Buddhism and its leader…Nonfiction of the highest caliber: fascinating and thorough.”
—Kirkus (starred review)

“A brilliant pairing of writer and subject.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A wonderful book. I don’t know when I have seen such a perfect match of a glorious subject and an author who can do justice to that subject.”
—Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions

“Pico Iyer's exceptionally intimate portrait of the Dalai Lama takes us beyond global celebrity image and into a true private audience with a leader of tremendous complexity. Without ever losing compassion or respect for his subject, Iyer (like a good Buddhist, actually) peels away layer after layer of illusion, revealing critical truths about this man at every possible level. In so doing, the author makes an important case -- namely, that the world doesn't merely need larger-than-life humanitarian idols; the world needs larger-than-life humanitarian idols whom we can also recognize as being real people, whose limitations, doubts and personal struggles reflect our fragile humanity right back upon us.”
–Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

“Pico Iyer delights, weaving with scintillating intelligence and evident fondness a spell-binding tale of the 14th Dalai Lama’s uncanny power on the world stage. The Open Road intertwines an insider’s access to telling detail with a well-seasoned journalist’s skeptical sensibility. This thoughtful, thought-provoking book will open readers’ eyes. I couldn’t put it down.”
–Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence

“In The Open Road, Pico Iyer transcends his celebrated excellence as a travel writer. In an uncommonly thoughtful and eloquent report on the spiritual reflections and also the complex and demanding political and practical encounters negotiated every day by the Dalai Lama–an old friend of his father whom he has known well since early boyhood, not only on regular sojourns at Dharamsala but as a companionable observer on His Holiness’s tireless world travels on behalf of simple sanity and peace–Iyer has brought us an invaluable account and precious gift.”
–Peter Matthiessen, author of The Snow Leopard

“Pico Iyer has taken on perhaps the hardest subject in the whole world to capture on paper: the story of a spiritual/political leader whose greatness is routinely condensed by media accounts into platitudes, and of a movement for both globalized understanding and the salvation of one very particular sliver of land. His account of the 14th Dalai Lama is an undiluted triumph, a book as subtle and moving as any nonfiction produced in recent decades. The planet and its possibilities will look different to you by its close.”
–Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy

From the Hardcover edition.

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Title of ebook: The Open Road
ISBN: 9780307268655
parent-ISBN: 9780307267603
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Pages: 288
Published: 03-2008
Released online for download: 03-25-2008
Author of eBook: Iyer, Pico

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The Open Road

The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama

Chapter One

THE CONUNDRUM

The two young men had many things in common as they settled into the room under the snowcaps, bright Tibetan scrolls on the walls, pine-covered slopes all around. Both of them were travelers-exiles-who had left their homes behind and so were in a position to think about home in a new way, without the limitations of nationality or race. Both were philosophers, too, but philosophers with a keen interest in the real world and the ways in which politics and society could be transformed by being seen in a different light. Both were coming of age at a time when cultures could reach one another as never before, thanks to jet planes and television screens, and the first question before them, perhaps, was how to turn this global reality into a fresh opportunity.

The Fourteenth Dalai Lama was only twenty-four at the time, having come into India barely a year before, in March 1959, when Chinese troops had threatened to bring war to his capital of Lhasa and he had been forced to flee his native Tibet. Now, for the first time in his adult ... read full excerpt from: The Open Road ebook

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