Download high-resolution image

Aflame

Learning from Silence

Author Pico Iyer

Hardcover

$30.00 US

Penguin Adult HC/TR | Riverhead Books

5.71"W x 8.53"H x 0.88"D | 12 oz | 12 per carton

On sale Jan 14, 2025 | 240 Pages | 9780593420287

Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Reading Aflame may help many to lead lives of greater compassion and deeper peace of mind.” —His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“A perfect read for the noisy and anxious world we live in right now." –NBC Today Show

“Slender and splendid.” – The Marginalian, Best Books of 2025

From the bestselling author of The Art of Stillness, a revelatory exploration of the abiding clarity and calm to be found in quiet retreat

Pico Iyer has made more than one hundred retreats over the past three decades to a small Benedictine hermitage high above the sea in Big Sur, California. He’s not a Christian—or a member of any religious group—but his life has been transformed by these periods of time spent in silence. That silence reminds him of what is essential and awakens a joy that nothing can efface. It’s not just freedom from distraction and noise and rush: it’s a reminder of some deeper truths he misplaced along the way.

In Aflame, Iyer connects with inner stillness and joy in his many seasons at the monastery, even as his life is going through constant change: a house burns down, a parent dies, a daughter is diagnosed with cancer. He shares the revelations he experiences, alongside wisdom from other nonmonastics who have learned from adversity and inwardness. And most profoundly, he shows how solitude can be a training in community and companionship. In so doing, he offers a unique outsider’s view of monastic life—and of a group of selfless souls who have dedicated their days to ensuring there’s a space for quiet and recollection that’s open to us all.

Radiant, intimate, and gripping, Aflame offers ageless counsel about the power of silence and what it can teach us about how to live, how to love, and, ultimately, how to die.

Pico Iyer is the author of fifteen books, translated into twenty-three languages, and has been a constant contributor for more than thirty years to Time, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide. His four recent talks for TED have received more than eleven million views. www.picoiyerjourneys.com View titles by Pico Iyer

Available for sale exclusive:

• Canada

• Guam

• Minor Outl.Ins.

• North Mariana

• Philippines

• Puerto Rico

• Samoa,American

• US Virgin Is.

• USA

Available for sale non-exclusive:

• Afghanistan

• Aland Islands

• Albania

• Algeria

• Andorra

• Angola

• Anguilla

• Antarctica

• Argentina

• Armenia

• Aruba

• Austria

• Azerbaijan

• Bahrain

• Belarus

• Belgium

• Benin

• Bhutan

• Bolivia

• Bonaire, Saba

• Bosnia Herzeg.

• Bouvet Island

• Brazil

• Bulgaria

• Burkina Faso

• Burundi

• Cambodia

• Cameroon

• Cape Verde

• Centr.Afr.Rep.

• Chad

• Chile

• China

• Colombia

• Comoro Is.

• Congo

• Cook Islands

• Costa Rica

• Croatia

• Cuba

• Curacao

• Czech Republic

• Dem. Rep. Congo

• Denmark

• Djibouti

• Dominican Rep.

• Ecuador

• Egypt

• El Salvador

• Equatorial Gui.

• Eritrea

• Estonia

• Ethiopia

• Faroe Islands

• Finland

• France

• Fren.Polynesia

• French Guinea

• Gabon

• Georgia

• Germany

• Greece

• Greenland

• Guadeloupe

• Guatemala

• Guinea Republic

• Guinea-Bissau

• Haiti

• Heard/McDon.Isl

• Honduras

• Hong Kong

• Hungary

• Iceland

• Indonesia

• Iran

• Iraq

• Israel

• Italy

• Ivory Coast

• Japan

• Jordan

• Kazakhstan

• Kuwait

• Kyrgyzstan

• Laos

• Latvia

• Lebanon

• Liberia

• Libya

• Liechtenstein

• Lithuania

• Luxembourg

• Macau

• Macedonia

• Madagascar

• Maldives

• Mali

• Marshall island

• Martinique

• Mauritania

• Mayotte

• Mexico

• Micronesia

• Moldavia

• Monaco

• Mongolia

• Montenegro

• Morocco

• Myanmar

• Nepal

• Netherlands

• New Caledonia

• Nicaragua

• Niger

• Niue

• Norfolk Island

• North Korea

• Norway

• Oman

• Palau

• Palestinian Ter

• Panama

• Paraguay

• Peru

• Poland

• Portugal

• Qatar

• Reunion Island

• Romania

• Russian Fed.

• Rwanda

• Saint Martin

• San Marino

• SaoTome Princip

• Saudi Arabia

• Senegal

• Serbia

• Singapore

• Sint Maarten

• Slovakia

• Slovenia

• South Korea

• South Sudan

• Spain

• St Barthelemy

• St.Pier,Miquel.

• Sth Terr. Franc

• Sudan

• Suriname

• Svalbard

• Sweden

• Switzerland

• Syria

• Tadschikistan

• Taiwan

• Thailand

• Timor-Leste

• Togo

• Tokelau Islands

• Tunisia

• Turkey

• Turkmenistan

• Ukraine

• Unit.Arab Emir.

• Uruguay

• Uzbekistan

• Vatican City

• Venezuela

• Vietnam

• Wallis,Futuna

• West Saharan

• Western Samoa

• Yemen

Not available for sale:

• Antigua/Barbuda

• Australia

• Bahamas

• Bangladesh

• Barbados

• Belize

• Bermuda

• Botswana

• Brit.Ind.Oc.Ter

• Brit.Virgin Is.

• Brunei

• Cayman Islands

• Christmas Islnd

• Cocos Islands

• Cyprus

• Dominica

• Falkland Islnds

• Fiji

• Gambia

• Ghana

• Gibraltar

• Grenada

• Guernsey

• Guyana

• India

• Ireland

• Isle of Man

• Jamaica

• Jersey

• Kenya

• Kiribati

• Lesotho

• Malawi

• Malaysia

• Malta

• Mauritius

• Montserrat

• Mozambique

• Namibia

• Nauru

• New Zealand

• Nigeria

• Pakistan

• PapuaNewGuinea

• Pitcairn Islnds

• S. Sandwich Ins

• Seychelles

• Sierra Leone

• Solomon Islands

• Somalia

• South Africa

• Sri Lanka

• St. Helena

• St. Lucia

• St. Vincent

• St.Chr.,Nevis

• Swaziland

• Tanzania

• Tonga

• Trinidad,Tobago

• Turks&Caicos Is

• Tuvalu

• Uganda

• United Kingdom

• Vanuatu

• Zambia

• Zimbabwe

Praise for Aflame:

“Pico Iyer [is an] untiring steward of the human soul…. Slender and splendid.” – The Marginalian, Best Books of 2025

“Rendered in subtly powerful prose, the result sheds fresh light on the need for stillness in a noisy world.” – Publishers Weekly, Best Books of 2025

"This gentle and captivating book, with its cast of attractive and sometimes eccentric seekers of tranquility and goodness, is a long answer to the question of why its author keeps returning to the Hermitage." – Los Angeles Review of Books

"Aflame is a gorgeous book." – BookRiot

“In this spare, delicately woven memoir, he combines portraits of the people he has encountered during his stays with crystalline descriptions of the natural setting and philosophical ruminations on the purposes of retreat... a powerful work of observation in which deep truths seem to arise almost by accident.” – The New Yorker

"I love a good self-help, motivational book, but so many of them can leave people stressed with all their to-do lists. But this book is different...perfect read for the noisy and anxious world we live in right now." – NBC Today Show

"When the cacophony of the world grows too loud, author Pico Iyer knows just where to go...In Aflame: Learning From Silence, Iyer highlights this contrast while distilling his musings from over 100 visits to the monastery. A timely collection of epiphanies both small and life-changing — all conceived in stillness from a small, modest cell overlooking the Pacific Ocean." – San Francisco Chronicle

“An ode to the religious retreat… Aflame honors this sanctuary and the monks and nuns who offer silence and solace to those in search of peace.” – Lion’s Roar

“Beautiful… Iyer masterfully and lyrically shows us how we may need to find a new home - one far more solemn, communal and silent than our present one - in order to return properly to ourselves.” – Alain de Botton

“Pico Iyer has been studying sincere practitioners from many religious traditions for a long time and has gathered some of what he’s learned in this book. I trust that reading this book may help many to lead lives of greater compassion and deeper peace of mind.” – His Holiness the Dalai Lama

“Luminous and exquisitely simple, it is astonishing how Pico transports you into the joy of the mystery. And then, lit with love, he shows you how to find it everywhere.” – Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart

“Aflame is an exquisite book, a jewel, a treasure, and appearing at a time when silence can teach us to see more deeply, to love more surely. This timeless book reveals an inner landscape that is aflame with wisdom.” – Joan Halifax

About

Creators