Andy Couturier spent four years studying sustainable living in rural Japan. There, he worked with local environmentalists, wrote for The Japan Times, and studied how Japanese aesthetics can help us develop new forms of writing. Couturier has also hitchhiked across the Sahara desert, been a researcher for Greenpeace, built his own house with hand tools, and taught intuitive writing for more than two decades. He is a student of many different Asian philosophical systems and is fluent in Japanese.
“We are in an overheated world—physically and spiritually. It is
extremely powerful to read of people who have managed to escape
that world, not by traveling to outer space but by heading toward
reality. This is subversive in the best possible way.”
—Bill McKibben, author of Deep Economy
“Reading this magic book is like drinking from a fresh wellspring
deep in the mountains: it slowly returns one to sanity. In an era
when the allure of ten thousand digital screens eclipses the inner
radiance of a stone lying among the reeds, how clarifying to
encounter the eloquence and humility of these well-lived
lives.”
—David Abram, author of The Spell of the Sensuous
“Couturier catches everything that is essential and beautiful in
Japan with a clarity, sincerity, and openness that move me to the
core. It’s been years since such a fresh and liberating voice has
emerged to remind us of the true heart of a country that so many of
us fail to see.”
—Pico Iyer, author of The Lady and the Monk
“Andy Couturier has written some very articulate pieces on the
counterculture in Japan.”
—Gary Snyder, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet
“In this world where so many of us are rushing around, stressed and
pressed for time, The Abundance of Less is a welcome reminder that
there are other possibilities. Andy Couturier takes us along as he
visits ten people who have created lives in the slow lane—lives
that are rich in creativity, environmentally sustainable, and
deeply meaningful.”
—Ellen Bass, chancellor, Academy of American Poets and Lambda
Literary Award winner
“While many desperately search for new ‘economic models’ to
deflect the coming global collapse, some people just take to
the hills and start living beautiful lives. The Abundance of Less
is an exquisite, soulful report on ten people in Japan who stopped
worrying about changing the world with technology, innovation and
economic enterprise, and chose nature, simplicity, time and
cooperation as their survival tools. This book is filled with
inspiring lessons for these very difficult times.”
—Jerry Mander, author of In the Absence of the Sacred and Four
Arguments for the Elimination of Television
“I study The Abundance of Less because it’s so much the way I
intend to live. It’s gratifying that Andy Couturier has drawn us
such a clear picture of how to live in a spare and elegant way. He
has done so through his encounters with people who know how to
throw away the unnecessary, and not replace it with more junk.”
—Jonathan Richman, musician, Stonemason
“Employing stories rather than statistics to illuminate the rewards
of a life that embraces ‘the abundance of less,’ Andy Couturier
writes with empathy and insight about Japanese people who integrate
traditional elements of self-reliance into their daily lives. He
also tells of the effect they have had on his own way of life in
the U.S., and argues that consciously choosing not to take
everything we could take, best preserves our world for the
next generation.”
—Ted Orland, author of Art and Fear
“Inspiring. As our leaders hurl us toward ruin, this timely
antidote brims with wisdom, purpose, joy, and resistance.”
—Mark Sundeen, author of The Unsettlers and The Man Who Quit
Money
“[The Abundance of Less] will compel readers to consider how they
might live more simply and increase their civic engagement.”
—Tricycle: The Buddhist Review
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