Dear book lovers, perphaps, you could share with us some of your favorite summer readings. Pico Iyer is one expressive writer (author of "Video Night in Kathmandu") I have read and loved: ABANDON By Pico Iyer. ýKill me now, for I long to be with the One I love!ý John Macmillan, an English graduate student of Islamic mystical poetry, determined to view the world in Sufi light hears these words in the somber lecture hall of his California University. In Pico Iyerýs novel, ýAbandoný, the protagonist struggles to understand the more obscure work of the prolific Sufi poet, Rumi. Set against the backdrop of a sunny California, Macmillanýs insatiable desire for some rare but elusive Sufi manuscript leads him through Spain, India and Iran. Equally disorienting is his attraction to the elusive but neurotic Camilla Jensen who seems to float in and out of his orderly-thesis-writing life at the most inopportune times. The story is a merger of Sufi mysticism, spiritual confusion and romantic love ý all of which give a new but parallel meaning to the word ýAbandoný. ýAbandonýýThe state where the true Sufi, the passionate lover and the spiritual travelerýall, give up reason, passion and faith to understand the all consuming desire for knowledge. At this new age era when new age spiritualism has taken a gigantic hold in the West, Iyerýs book seems timely. Iyer, who was born to Indian parents and educated in England, now lives in Japan; no doubt, his very lifestyle aids him in his depiction of cross cultural mergers and transitions. A keen observer and a sensitive writer, Iyer, in his ýVideo Night in Kathmanduý, reflects on the effects of modernity in traditional societies. A well traveled ýnowherianý, as he refers to himself in his other book ýThe Global Soulý, Pico explores worldwide displacement while experiencing the ýglobal villageý where cultural fusion serves to overwhelm the senses at an alarmingly rapid rate. "You are the violation of my vows, My apostasy, my faith. I shatter myself and you, I bend to pick up the pieces. You move me. Out of stasis. I see your reflection in the mirror. I can't tell me from you. No, no closer. Stay away! Already you are as close to me As the fire to the flame." (A Sufi Poem from "Abandon", a book by Pico Iyer)