Geoff Dyer

Novelist and journalist Geoff Dyer has been described by the Daily Telegraph as "quite possibly the best living writer in Britain". His prize-winning books include Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered and Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi. Alive with insight, delight and Dyer's characteristic irreverence, ... (more)this collection offers a guide around the cultural maze, mapping a route through the worlds of literature, art, photography, music. Working the Room spans the photography of Martin Parr and the paintings of Turner, the writing of Scott Fitzgerald and the criticism of Susan Sontag, and includes extensive personal pieces - 'On Being an Only Child', 'Sacked' and 'Reader's Block' among many others. Dyer's breadth of visiona nd generosity of spirit combine to form a manual for ways of being in - and seeing - the world today. Tickets £5, please call 020 7229 1010 to reserve. Events begin at 7pm and last for approximately one hour. Please do come and join us for a glass of wine from 6.30pm.

Three of our most innovative, distinctive and versatile writers talk about blending fact and fiction in their work and breaking literary taboos. Geoff Dyer's latest book, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, is an artful novel-cum-memoir; Anne Enright won the Booker Prize for The Gathering - a family saga ... (more)of daring, wit and insight; Andrew O'Hagan's hot-off-the-press The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of his friend Marilyn Monroe starts at Charleston, segues to LA and brings to life Hollywood's golden era and most famous star.

Geoff Dyer has been called a "counter tourist", a "restless polymath" and a prolific slacker. A travel writer, essayist and novelist, Dyer is as at home writing about Anglo-English Attitudes (a collection of essays) as he is writing a novel about an Englishman abroad (Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi). ... (more)Dyer's restless imagination has seen him write about John Berger (Ways of Telling), jazz (But Beautiful), D. H. Lawrence (Out of Sheer Rage), photography (The Ongoing Moment) and travel (Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It). His endlessly witty insights can also be found regularly in the Guardian where he has recently opined on film, John Cheever's journals, Andre Agassi's autobiography and the afterlife. Join him in conversation with David Hedley.

The expression ‘creative non-fiction' is one of those elusive terms intended to cover many different kinds of writing. At best, the term describes writers who explore what is possible in a way that eludes traditional genres. Geoff Dyer has used non-fiction to explore his love of jazz (But Beautiful), ... (more)his frustration with trying to write about D.H. Lawrence (Out of Sheer Rage), and to create an utterly unique take on travel (Yoga for People Who Can't be Bothered to Do It). For Philip Hoare, creative non-fiction has lead to a ‘biography' of a military hospital (Spike Island: The Memory of a Military Hospital) and books on Stephen Tennant and Oscar Wilde. Most recently, and magnificently, Hoare has written a treatise on whales (Leviathan or, The Whale). No matter its guise, creative non-fiction is producing some of the most exciting writing done today. Join two of its best practitioners in conversation with Harry Ricketts.

Geoff Dyer is an essayist, travel writer, and novelist whose range of subject matter is distinctly idiosyncratic. Dyer has turned his wry and subtle intellect to topics as varied as jazz (But Beautiful), D. H. Lawrence (Out of Sheer Rage), and photography (The Ongoing Moment). As a travel writer, he ... (more)has written about the manifold neurosis of being himself in other places in Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It. A regular contributor to the Guardian, The Independent and Wallpaper, Dyer counts Steve Martin and Bryan Ferry among his most avid fans. Dyer is also a novelist, and his most recent, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi won the 2009 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. When asked about the level of autobiography in his work Dyer commented, "I like writing stuff that's only an inch from life but all the art - and, for me, all the fun - is in that inch". Join him in conversation with Emily Perkins.