How I Turned into the Writer I Am Not

The work of British writer Geoff Dyer is frequently classified as “unclassifiable;” his writing is wildly eclectic yet gorgeously coherent. His new book, Another Great Day at Sea—about life on an American aircraft carrier—is at the same time a travelogue, unerring social observation, and honed comedy. Zona, his meditation on the film Stalker, by Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, was supposed to be a book about tennis; his book about D.H. Lawrence, Out of Sheer Rage, is essentially about not writing a book about D.H. Lawrence; and Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It is definitely not a self-help book. Rodman and Dyer will attempt to account for the “singular restlessness” of Dyer’s writing while happily digressing on other subjects.