Paul Theroux in conversation with Pico Iyer discussing his book, "Deep South: Four Seasons on Back Roads," at Live Talks Los Angeles on October 13, 2015.Theroux's novels include The Lower River and The Mosquito Coast, and his renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Dark Star Safari. He has spent fifty years crossing the globe, adventuring in the exotic, seeking the rich history and folklore of the far away. For the first time, in his tenth travel book, Theroux explores a piece of America - the Deep South. He finds there a paradoxical place, full of incomparable music, unparalleled cuisine, and yet also some of the nation's worst schools, housing, and unemployment rates. It's these parts of the South, so often ignored, that have caught Theroux's keen traveler's eye.
Pico Iyer is the author of twelve books, on subjects as varied as Cuba, globalism, Graham Greene and the XIVth Dalai Lama, and writes up to 100 articles a year for magazines from The New York Review of Books to Harper's, and Vanity Fair to Wired. He delivered popular TED talks in both 2013 and 2014-his most recent book is a small TED Original on the theme of stillness.