1653 records matched your query
03667aam a2200457 i 4500 001 7B63373CEAB211EB95DB475F3FECA4DB 003 SILO 005 20210722010305 008 201023s2021 nyua b 000 0deng d 020 $a 9781501132513 020 $a 1501132512 035 $a (OCoLC)1201298446 040 $a YDX $b eng $e rda $c YDX $d BDX $d OTP $d UKMGB $d OCLCO $d CDX $d OCLCF $d TP7 $d IH9 $d IOU $d SILO 043 $a a-ii--- 082 04 $a 954/.820922 $2 23 100 1 $a Kapur, Akash, $e author. 245 10 $a Better to have gone : $b love, death, and the quest for utopia in Auroville / $c Akash Kapur. 246 30 $a Love, death, and the quest for utopia in Auroville 250 $a First Scribner hardcover edition. 264 1 $a New York : $b Scribner, $c 2021. 300 $a xiv, 344 pages : $b illustrations (black and white) ; $c 24 cm 504 $a Includes bibliographical references. 520 $a "A spellbinding story about love, faith, the search for utopia -- and the often devastating cost of idealism. It's the late 1960s, and two lovers converge on an arid patch of earth in South India. John Walker is the handsome scion of a powerful East Coast American family. Diane Maes is a beautiful hippie from Belgium. They have come to build a new world -- Auroville, an international utopian community for thousands of people. Their faith is strong, the future bright. So how do John and Diane end up dying two decades later, on the same day, on a cracked concrete floor in a thatch hut by a remote canyon? This is the mystery Akash Kapur sets out to solve in Better to Have Gone, and it carries deep personal resonance: Diane and John were the parents of Akash's wife, Auralice. Akash and Auralice grew up in Auroville; like the rest of their community, they never really understood those deaths. In 2004, Akash and Auralice return to Auroville from New York, where they have been living with John's family. As they reestablish themselves, along with their two sons, in the community, they must confront the ghosts of those distant deaths. Slowly, they come to understand how the tragic individual fates of John and Diane intersected with the collective history of their town. Better to Have Gone is a book about the human cost of our age-old quest for a more perfect world. It probes the underexplored yet universal idea of utopia, and it portrays in vivid detail the daily life of one utopian community. Richly atmospheric and filled with remarkable characters, spread across time and continents, this is narrative writing of the highest order -- a heartbreaking, unforgettable story." -- $c Book jacket. 520 $a 'Better to Have Gone' blends memoir, history, sociology, and politics. It probes the under-explored yet universal idea of utopia, and it portrays in vivid detail the daily life of one particular utopian community striving to create a better world. Above all, it is a love story about two doomed and idealistic dreamers, wrapped in the longing of the daughter who has lost them. 600 10 $a Maes, Diane. 600 10 $a Walker, John. 650 0 $a Utopias $z India. 651 0 $a Auroville (India) $x History. 941 $a 10 952 $l ALPE516 $d 20240417015746.0 952 $l BOPG851 $d 20231010023429.0 952 $l SIPD314 $d 20230201022940.0 952 $l TYPH572 $d 20220630013954.0 952 $l TCPG826 $d 20220202010401.0 952 $l GBPF771 $d 20211102013536.0 952 $l S1PD771 $d 20211005011008.0 952 $l XXPH787 $d 20211002015627.0 952 $l CAPH522 $d 20210910010425.0 952 $l BAPH771 $d 20210722011822.0 956 $a http://locator.silo.lib.ia.us/search.cgi?index_0=id&term_0=7B63373CEAB211EB95DB475F3FECA4DB 994 $a C0 $b IOUInitiate Another SILO Locator Search