“If Hunter S Thompson, Roland Barthes, Paul Theroux and Sylvia Plath all went on holiday together in the same body, perhaps they could come up with something like [this]. This is the funniest book I have read for a very long time… My book of the year.” William Sutcliffe, Independent on Sunday
From Amsterdam to Cambodia, from Rome to Indonesia, from New Orleans to Libya, from Detroit to Ko Pha-Ngan, Geoff Dyer finds himself both floundering about in a sea of grievances and losing himself in moments of transcendental calm. This aberrant quest for peak experiences leads, ultimately, to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada – where – to quote Tarkovsky’s Stalker – ‘your most cherished desire will come true.’
“A restless polymath and an irresistibly funny storyteller, he is adept at fiction, essay and reportage, but happiest when twisting all three into something entirely his own.” The New Yorker
“Delightfully original… Dyer’s writing brims with off-beat insights that had me chuckling hours later, or reading aloud to dinner companions…Whether or not they happened as Dyer describes, his meanderings – and his head – make for a wonderfully rich country to wander around.” Tony Horwitz, New York Times Book Review
“Another screamingly funny, genre-defying feat.” Maggie O’Farrell, Books of the Year, Daily Telegraph
“Uproarious, unclassifiable… He is assuredly among the funniest writers alive… a bohemian travel narrative as internal as any by Kerouac, told in language as aphoristic as Oscar Wilde’s.” David Kipen, San Francisco Chronicle
“Geoff Dyer manipulates time, tweaking it and stretching it, like Dali’s clocks… As in dreams, certain objects—a pair of sandals, a can of Coca-Cola—reappear in different locations… The book becomes a beautiful spiral of time.” TLS
“Yoga is observant, funny and in unexpected ways affecting… a genuinely funny writer whom one reads for the sheer pleasure and surprise of it, no matter what happens to be his subject.” Washington Post
“If Jack Kerouac had lived in the era of routine jet travel, he might have written something like Yoga.” Time Out New York
Winner of W.H. Smith Best Travel Book, 2004
Current paperback editions: UK, Canongate; US, Vintage
First published: UK, Abacus, 2003, US, Pantheon 2003
In the press:
The New York Times The Telegraph The Observer Guardian Sydney Morning Herald