Aflame Learning from Silence

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