What holds everything together, besides Iyer’s elegantly smooth prose style and gift for detailed observation, is a circling around the theme of autumn in Japan and this autumnal period in his life ... There's much wisdom in what he says
New York Times Book Review
A tender meditation on both Japanese culture and the impermanence of life
National Geographic Traveller
A memoir about transience, decline and Iyer's simple life among ping-pong playing pensioners
Financial Times, Books of the Year
Exquisite ... [Iyer] is a consummate tour guide
New Yorker
[An] exquisite personal blend of philosophy and engagement, inner quiet and worldly life ... A vivid meditation ... It’s Iyer’s keen ear for detail and human nature that helps him populate his trademark cantabile prose ... [A] genuine and loving tale
Los Angeles Times
Luminous ... An engrossing narrative, a moving meditation on loss and an evocative, lyrical portrait of Japanese society
Publishers Weekly
As a guide to far-flung places, Pico Iyer can hardly be surpassed
- praise for 'Sun After Dark', New Yorker
Humbling and moving ... One of a handful of magical books that I have read straight through
- praise for 'The Man Within My Head', Daily Telegraph
In his guise of travel writer, Iyer has really been our most elegant poet of dislocation
- praise for 'The Man Within My Head', Guardian