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Book Summary and Reviews of The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen

The Snow Leopard

by Peter Matthiessen

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  • Published:
  • Aug 1978, 338 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

An unforgettable spiritual journey through the Himalayas by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014)

In 1973, Peter Matthiessen and field biologist George Schaller traveled high into the remote mountains of Nepal to study the Himalayan blue sheep and possibly glimpse the rare and beautiful snow leopard. Matthiessen, a student of Zen Buddhism, was also on a spiritual quest to find the Lama of Shey at the ancient shrine on Crystal Mountain. As the climb proceeds, Matthiessen charts his inner path as well as his outer one, with a deepening Buddhist understanding of reality, suffering, impermanence, and beauty. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction by acclaimed travel writer and novelist Pico Iyer.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"A masterpiece that exceeds the boundaries of the travel genre and envelops you with its incredible prose." —Wall Street Journal

"Stunning ... Fiercely felt and magnificently written ... [Matthiessen] has expressed with uncommon candor and no prospect of relief, a longing which keeps the soul striving and alert in us all." —Washington Post

"A magical book, a kind of lunar paradigm and map of the sacred." —The Nation

This information about The Snow Leopard was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen was the cofounder of The Paris Review and is the author of numerous works of nonfiction, including In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Indian Country, and The Snow Leopard, winner of the National Book Award.

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