White Sands
Experiences from the Outside World
Geoff Dyer
“The sand is made of gypsum—whatever that is—and is as bright as newfallen snow. Brighter, actually. It’s really quite unbelievable that anything can be so bright”
Available as Paperback, eBook
In the spirit of Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It, his bestselling book about travel, Geoff Dyer is back on the road.
SHORTLISTED FOR STANFORD DOLMAN TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR
From a trip to The Lightning Field in New Mexico, to chasing Gauguin’s ghost in French Polynesia, White Sands is a creative exploration of why we travel.
Episodic, wide-ranging and funny, Geoff Dyer blends travel writing, essay, criticism and fiction with a smart and cantankerous wit that is unmatched. From one of the most original writers in Britain, this is a book for armchair travellers and procrastinating philosophers everywhere.
“Brilliant … Dyer’s eyes miss nothing”
Peter Conrad
observer
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“An examination of some of the most fundamental questions of life … Inspiring and informing”
guardian
“Even Chekhov might have envied Geoff Dyer’s talent … Almost perfect”
Jan Morris
spectator
“[A] disregard for genre boundaries is a hallmark of his work, along with erudition, a brilliant use of language and irreverent humour … The nearest thing to White Sands in Dyer’s back catalogue is Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It”
daily Telegraph
“Surpassingly eloquent … there’s no other writer quite like Dyer”
time
Geoff Dyer
Geoff Dyer is the author of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi and three previous novels, as well as nine non-fiction books. Dyer has won the Somerset Maugham Prize, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, a Lannan Literary Award, the International Center of Photography’s 2006 Infinity Award for writing on photography and the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ E.M. Forster Award. In 2009 he was named GQ’s Writer of the Year. He won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2012 and was a finalist in 1998. In 2015 he received a Windham Campbell Prize for non-fiction. His books have been translated into twenty-four languages. He currently lives in Los Angeles where he is Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California.
“Dyer’s eyes miss nothing, and his brain emits sparks as brilliantly as The Lightning Field is meant to do in an evening thunderstorm”
Peter Conrad
The Guardian
“Many writers dread the idea of writing but force themselves to do it. I’m not like that. Built up over 30-plus years of working at home, the habit of self-discipline means that at the first sign of sleepiness I commit absolutely to a nap. Some days I don’t really feel like sleeping but I lie down and force myself” Geoff Dyer details his writing day at the Guardian.