I’m more than a little surprised to find myself in this box: my idea of NEWS is something that happened in 1848, and I think there are better things to advertise and take notice of than my tiny doings or scribbles.

But now that DDB Singapore has brought me into the 20th century – with every sign of coaxing me into the 21st – I’m happy to welcome anyone who’s interested to this space, where we may now and then post something that’s not easily found elsewhere, a video clip from our recent journeys or something that might be of interest to anyone who’s traveled as far as this unexpected corner.

Thank you for your time and attention, and if you’re irritated by something here, please blame the brilliant designers of these pages. Without them, I’d still be in some black hole!

“A Scientist of Sorrow”–a review of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun for Air-Mail, February 27, 2021

“All That We Can’t Leave Behind”—an essay on the photographs of Robert Voit, to accompany the exhibition “Aequilibrium” in Berlin, March, 2021.

An imaginative essay on “Why I Write” and a long interview on writing for the inaugural issue of Good River Review, April 2021

“Truth in Fiction”–an essay on the books that for me are the deepest spiritual texts, for Lion’s Roar, May 2021

A 25-minute talk with tennis legend and broadcaster Patrick McEnroe, for his podcast, “Holding Court”—June 4, 2021

“Age of Invention”—a brief profile of hotel-creating visionary Adrian Zecha in Travel + Leisure, July 2021

“The Joy Inside Sorrow”–an essay on Georg Frideric Handel for an anthology of pieces on music, Ways of Hearing (Princeton University Press), September 2021, excerpted in Lit Hub on September 29, 2021

“My Guidebook to Japan”—a long essay on Henry David Thoreau, for the anthology Now Comes Good Sailing (Princeton University Press), and excerpted in The American Scholar, October 2021.

If you’re interested in hearing Pico Iyer speak, here are a few dates and places to try:

October 14 Panel discussion on Thoreau (online)
Politics & Prose Bookstore
October 27Panel discussion on Thoreau (online)
Huntington Library
October 28Conversation with Vijay Gupta, UCSB
Santa Barbara, California
November 25 Panel on Jan Morris (online)
Royal Society of Literature, London
March 2, 2022Conversation with Erik Larson, UCSB
Santa Barbara, California
March 11-16Silversea World Cruise 2022
Zanzibar-Mahe
April 10-14 TED Annual Conference
Vancouver, Canada
April 23Conversation with Krista Tippett, SF City Arts
San Francisco, California
April 29Keynote lecture, Travel Con
Memphis, Tennessee
May 11Workshop on stillness (virtual)
Six Senses Resorts
May 13Conversation with Elizabeth Strout, UCSB
Santa Barbara, California
June 5-9Workshop with Abbess Fu Schroeder, Tassajara
Carmel, California
October 2-9, 2022Montgomery Fellow, Dartmouth College
Hanover, New Hampshire

Many more engagements are currently in the works.

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