The Book of Flying [Hardcover]

Keith Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 22, 2004

A bold, vivid, fantastical first novel about a young librarian who sets off on a magical journey to gain his wings in order to win the heart of the girl he loves. The Book of Flying is a satisfying, old-fashioned story-driven by the sheer power of imagination and the beauty of language.

Pico is an orphaned librarian who has been sustained all of his young life by his love of stories alone. But when love does come to him at last, it is forbidden. For the girl of his dreams is of the winged people in the City by the Sea. And Pico is wingless. So when he discovers an ancient letter in his library telling of the mythical Morning Town where the flightless may gain their wings, he sets off on a quest, carrying his four favorite books in a knapsack. It's a magical journey in which he meets a robber queen, a lonely minotaur, a dream seller, a despairing cannibal, and an immortal beauty. Each of them has a story, and a lesson for Pico. And, in the end, he has learned to kill, to love, to persevere, and, of course, to fly.

Pico's journey is Everyman's journey. But it's also special for being a reader's journey, because Pico's lessons are revealed through stories as much as they are through life. And after all, it's in books that our hearts open to other people and places. In this impressionable first novel, Keith Miller has created a tantalizingly foreign yet familiar world where our own imaginations take flight, carrying us, finally, to discover ourselves.

Keith Miller is an American who was born in Tanzania, raised in Kenya, and wrote this novel while traveling in southern Sudan. He now lives in Egypt, where he is a design consultant and art teacher at a center for refugees.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Solemnly sonorous and emptily pretty, this ersatz quest novel tells how a poet struggles to learn to fly and regain a lost love. In a city where some inhabitants sit in cafes while others fly over the sea, Pico, a wingless poet who works as a librarian, falls in love with one of the winged people. When she eludes Pico's grasp, he despairs until he discovers, hidden near his library, a book telling of a ruined town where he can get his own wings. He immediately sets off for the fabled town, his mission taking him through deep forests into the arms of a lusty, gorgeous robber queen whose charms diminish for the reader when she utters cliches like "It's the ultimate theft, the stealing of another's heartbeat." Other encounters-with a talking rabbit who has compiled many fascinating tomes on local flora; with a young man who, in addition to being the poet's near-spitting image, is a cannibal-bring the poet ever closer to his goal, though each new twist in his journey saps his strength. Wallowing in high-flown whimsy and laughably bad poetry ("His tears have entered every well/ and his semen is the sap of peaches"), the novel rolls along predictably, despite Miller's mix of archetypal fantasy elements (flying people, talking animals, journeys through dark woods) and contemporary detail (the love of cigarettes, ever-present cafes, one city composed largely of booksellers). The downbeat ending skirts the obvious, but little else does in this hot-air-filled debut.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Pico is the librarian in his city by the sea: a humble, gentle man, a collector of books, a guardian and caretaker of the stories that are his breath and his life. One fateful day, he falls in love with Sisi, a beautiful, winged girl who cannot truly love a wingless creature like him. So Pico sets off to find Morning Town, where legend says he will find the Book of Flying and get his wings. On the way he has fabulous adventures and meets astonishing people, each of whom provides a gateway to learning something important about himself. Perhaps his most important discovery is that he is the hero of his own story. A beautiful and haunting modern fable that reads like exquisite poetry, Miller's first novel is a coming-of-age story cloaked in the language of myth in which Pico, as his humanity matures and expands to encompass those who are like and those who are unlike him, initially represents and eventually becomes the reader. Paula Luedtke
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (January 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573222496
• ISBN-13: 978-1573222495
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,003,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am an American citizen, but have spent most of my life in East and North Africa. Among other activities, I have started a library in southern Sudan, been involved with a traveling peace theater in Burundi, and worked with Sudanese refugees in Cairo. I am currently a U.S. resident.

My first novel, The Book of Flying, was published by Riverhead Books in 2004. My second, The Book on Fire, was published by Immanion Press in 2009. I have published articles on subjects such as architecture and Alexandrian history, as well as a translation of Arthur Rimbaud's The Illuminations.

Visit my website at millerworlds.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A touching allegory, February 20, 2005

By 

lanewburn "lanewburn" (Portsmouth, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Book of Flying (Mass Market Paperback)

The Book of Flying hearkens to a more whimsical style of writing that borders on the stuff of fairy tales. The reader gets to follow the young librarian Pico as he takes his Everyman/hero's journey to find wings, and the characters he encounters, the experiences he absorbs are a sort of Pilgrim's Progress to his self-realization. Miller's novel is really a long fable, and as such is so rich with poetic scenery that it makes for an absorbing read. While Pico and his friends and foes aren't as filled out as the characters of more contemporary fiction, they stand as shades of human experience, thus allowing the reader to fill in the blanks, to find a parallel of features in his/her self, and to soar and dive along the chapters with wings of one's own.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Book of Flying- and I wasn't disappointed by the title..., March 1, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Book of Flying (Hardcover)

I chose this book thinking it would be a how-to manual. I was only a little disappointed- what I found instead was beautiful.
Apparently this is a book you either will love or regret having read. I am not going to try and win anyone over- the writing speaks for itself.
I loved the lyricism and beauty of the writer's voice, and the plot, which wouldn't have been all that interesting on its own, was brought to life. This book is one to cry over or turn your back to.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Ultimate Book, The Ultimate Story, December 4, 2004

By 

Silver (Amherst, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Book of Flying (Hardcover)

There has never been a book, poem, story, or anything of the like which has touched me in the way "The Book Of Flying" has. It reaches out to all people of all types and discribes a story so beautiful, so painful, so out there that at the same time its the most down to earth thing you ever could here. The writing is beyond this world, it enraptures you, like the whole things the most beautiful of poems, me-being a writer myself, have been deeply inspired by Keith Miller's writing in this novel. I have read the book 7 times now, each time being better then the last, each time crying when its sad-laughing when its happy, and still I cant seem to get enough of it. I love this book so much that I cant even read another without putting this one down for awhile first-i even reflect back to it in everyday life, and the thousands of lessons and stories it gives off. I love this book, it definately gives you wings, and is the most ultimate of stories. The Book Of Flying is a must read for everyone, everywhere.

"twilight is the hour i love" he told her "the hour where nothing is quite itself, all things teetering at the edges of their names. Here I can be alone and a stranger to myself"
-Keith Miller "The Book Of Flying"