Blue Sky Kingdom

By any standards, it’s a big adventure to travel the slow way across the world to a remote corner of the Himalaya and live there for months in a spartan Buddhist monastery—but taking young children along ramps it up to another level. Written with zest and clarity, Bruce’s account is compelling, moving, funny and above all honest, sharing hardships and frustrations along with the joys and ultimate rewards.

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Bruce Kirkby’s chronicle of living in a remote Buddhist monastery with his family is by turns hilarious and enchanting. What a beautiful ode to impermanence, to the families we choose and the families we find, and to the complicated wonders of a different, and fast-disappearing, way of life.

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Family adventure doesn’t begin to describe what transpires in these pages. Kirkby and his remarkable family have built a bridge between the Rockies and the Himalaya, and in so doing spanned the gap between autism and Buddhism. In addition to being a manifestation of deepest love and devotion, this book is a time-bending journey through a landscape and culture that filled me with envy and sorrow by turns, while showing me things I have never seen described in a lifetime of reading. We are lucky to have someone as brave, generous and open as Bruce Kirkby abroad in the world.

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...a timely, heartwarming story of a family’s search for peace away from the din of modern culture. Soul-refreshing reading for armchair travelers and spiritual questers alike.

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Insightful and adventurous, Blue Sky Kingdom offers a road map on how to learn from the world … There is wisdom in this book. Open it and let your imagination soar.

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I was blown away by the audaciousness of this epic family voyage, desperately wishing I was there with them. Kirkby’s writing offers a vivid exploration of culture, geography and relationships, but also, more urgently, of how we choose to live—and whether that’s possible to change.

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A breathtaking journey, both geographical and internal, Kirkby’s blending of travelog of an already fascinatingly remote locale and personal family experience is unique and luminous. 

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Bruce Kirkby has lived the dream of the modern globe-trotting adventurer: crossing Arabian sand seas, sea-kayaking Iceland and Borneo, traversing Northern Mongolia on horseback. In Blue Sky Kingdom, Kirkby’s wife and two young sons join him for a different kind of journey—to an isolated Buddhist monastery, yes, but also to the elusive and fragile heart of wisdom that we all hope to glimpse in this lifetime. What a heartfelt, lovely and kind book this is.

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Blue Sky Kingdom is perfect pandemic reading. Not only does Bruce Kirkby take us far across the world and deep inside a rarely seen culture, but he also allows us an intimate view of his family, all while writing with tender honesty, penetrating insight, and a delightful lack of bravado. And particularly useful when we look up from the page and remember that we haven’t actually left the living room for weeks, he reminds us to breathe, embrace the unfamiliar, and celebrate even the smallest of moments.

 

 

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A rollicking journey, full of insights on cultivating a nourishing, fully present life amidst so much noise and distraction.

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In an era when countless demands make it increasingly easy to ignore people and engage instead with devices, Blue Sky Kingdom provides a much-needed call back to the physical world.

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In this uplifting travelogue, Kirkby, a Canadian travel journalist and photographer, recounts how he and his family fled the pressures of society to “slow down” in a Himalayan Buddhist temple. [...]  It’s poignant and gently provocative, much like a prayer flag blowing in the wind.