Geoff Dyer December 7, 2004 (Tuesday) 4:15 p.m. Informal Seminar Assembly Hall, Campus Center 8:00 p.m. Reading Recital Hall, PAC Both UAlbany, Uptown Campus

Geoff Dyer, newly appointed Writer-in-Residence in UAlbany's Department of English, blends truthful observations, subjective impressions, scholarly research, and laugh-out-loud humor to create pieces of writing that frequently challenge the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction.

[Dyer is] "quite possibly the best living writer in Britain" - "Daily Telegraph" (UK)

Dyer's 1999 book, "Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D. H. Lawrence" (1998), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The book is a meditation on the nature of "writer's block," and a fascinating chronicle of Dyer's failed attempt to write a new literary biography of D. H. Lawrence, the celebrated early 20th century author of "Lady Chatterley's Lover," "Women in Love," and "Sons and Lovers."

". . .a writer's life in hot pursuit of the unknown, full of accusations, procrastination, misgiving, misadventure, and devilish soliloquies. It's very funny and a very good biography of D. H. Lawrence." - "Booklist"

"I have to say I was disappointed. Disappointed because this book was so funny, so effortlessly readable, so clear and wonderful that it meant that the brilliance of 'Out of Sheer Rage' was not PURE DUMB LUCK." [It's] "The funniest book I have ever read."- comedian Steve Martin

Dyer's newest book is "Yoga for People Who Can't be Bothered to Do It" (2003), a collection of travel pieces that received the W. H. Smith "People's Choice" Book Award in England. The prize is so-named because it is awarded on the basis of votes from readers.

"a brilliant hybrid travelogue, memoir and semi-parodic self-help book [that] describes a decade of wanderlust." - The London "Independent"

Dyer received the Somerset Maugham Award of the British Society of Authors for his 1991 book, "But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz," a collection of eight meditations on the lives and works of American jazz musicians, including Duke Ellington, Chet Baker, Lester Young and Thelonius Monk. Writing in the "New York Times Book Review," Richard Bernstein called it, "an ingenious and brilliantly written book."

"Paris Trance" (1998), a novel of young, latter-day expatriates killing time in the French capital, was favorably compared by critics to the works of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Writing in the "New York Times," Daniel Mendelsohn said, "I can't think of a recent novel that better describes the scarily charged beginning of a love affair."

Bibliography

"Ways of Telling: The Work of John Berger," Pluto, 1986
"The Colour of Memory," Cape, 1989
"But Beautiful," Cape, 1991
"The Search," Hamish Hamilton, 1993
"The Missing of the Somme," Hamish Hamilton, 1994
"Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D. H. Lawrence," Little, Brown, 1997
"Paris Trance," Abacus, 1998
"Anglo-English Attitudes: Essay, Reviews, Misadventures, 1984-99," Abacus, 1999
"What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney," (editor with Margaret Sartor) WW Norton, 2000
"The Selected Essays of John Berger," (editor) Bloomsbury, 2001
"Granta 79: Celebrity," (contributor: 'An Infamous Night Out in Amsterdam') Granta, 2002
"Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It," Little, Brown, 2003