174th out of 767 books
—
1,214 voters
Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It
by
Geoff Dyer
This isn’t a self-help book; it’s a book about how Geoff Dyer could do with a little help. In mordantly funny and thought-provoking prose, the author of Out of Sheer Rage describes a life most of us would love to live—and how that life frustrates and aggravates him.
As he travels from Amsterdam to Cambodia, Rome to Indonesia, Libya to Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert, D...more
As he travels from Amsterdam to Cambodia, Rome to Indonesia, Libya to Burning Man in the Black Rock Desert, D...more
Paperback, 272 pages
Published
January 6th 2004
by Vintage
(first published January 14th 2003)
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I may have enjoyed this memoir by British author Geoff Dyer a bit more if, prior to picking it up, I had ever heard of Geoff Dyer--not to mention to have actually have read him. The picture he paints is not of a worldly intellectual traveling off the beaten path and living the moment, but of a rather immature, self-aggrandizing would-be thinker behaving like a teenager while actually in his 40s. His tales of drug-taking and drinking to excess did little to endear him to me, and the "screamingly...more
The only serious flaw in this otherwise extraordinary book is its title, which, in an attempt to seem playfully ironic, may mislead readers who would otherwise be glad to find it. It is decidedly not a talk-show-Dr. Phil-co-dependent no more sort of thing. It is rather a deeply meditative travel book, with chapters set in Paris, Cambodia, Libya, Amsterdam, and southern Thailand, and a narrative voice that is sly, lyrical, self-cynical, and painfully funny. The funny parts (which are always also...more
Oct 27, 2011
MJ Nicholls
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
non-fiction,
sassysassenachs
Geoff takes various shirts, various drugs, and various girls, to various locations around the world, intellectualising as he goes, sometimes having impish larks along the way, sometimes having nervous breakdowns, sometimes having sex with black women. At first, I was amused at this bourgeois intellect mincing around like a Club 18-30 member, then I found his antics a little drab, indulgent and flâneurish. At first his laid-back prose reads like a treat, but lapses at midpoint into a meandering a...more
"Then a hustler with wayward and unkempt eyes accosted us.
"D'you speak English?" he wanted to know.
"To a very high standard," I said.
"Could you do me a favour?"
"Almost certainly not," I said. For a moment he looked totally crestfallen. Then he went on his way without even saying, "Fuck you." In its way it was one of the most satisfying exchanges of my life. He could have been the risen Christ for all we cared.
What else?"
This is how Geoff Dyer writes: as if he is a friend filling you in on h...more
"D'you speak English?" he wanted to know.
"To a very high standard," I said.
"Could you do me a favour?"
"Almost certainly not," I said. For a moment he looked totally crestfallen. Then he went on his way without even saying, "Fuck you." In its way it was one of the most satisfying exchanges of my life. He could have been the risen Christ for all we cared.
What else?"
This is how Geoff Dyer writes: as if he is a friend filling you in on h...more
Oct 15, 2008
Brian Esser
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Sarah -- who gave it to me and has read it already
At first I kind of liked the book, then I thought the author was a miserable wanker. After a while the essays devolved into a typical pattern of him moving to a new city, pretending to write or work on a book or something, meet a woman, sleep with her or not, engage in some dialogue that was vaguely West Wing-esque, then ingest some controlled substances and finally wrap it up in a bit of hackneyed wisdom. Somewhere along the last or second to last essay he managed to fashion a memoir out of a s...more
If you've ever been far-off adventure traveling, taken drugs in an unfamiliar city, or cried inexplicably in a diner, then this book will illuminate all the knowledge you already have, and yet help you laugh at it. Assuming you can be bothered to read this, and find your initial literal yoga disappointments, you'll be mentally stretched, but in a gentle yoga-esque way. Every short chapter is a humorous anecdotal morsel. Like malteasers or chocolate cover raisins you think that this would make yo...more
Many other reviews have touched upon the same experience I had while reading this book. I didn't like Mr. Dyer much. I thought he was very macho and insensitive to women, and viewed them only as objects to be either worshiped, ignored or used briefly for his personal fulfillment. Occasionally he did have female travel companions or girlfriends that accompanied him. These women mostly served to have pointless existential conversations with Mr. Dyer when he felt one of his existential moods coming...more
Don't be tricked by the inapt title. This isn't one of those faux-silly/faux-serious books by certain male humorists who have gotten so inexplicably popular. I say this because I most certainly would not have picked this up off the shelf except that Dyer's name jumped out at me and it was with the travelogues. I like travelogues, and Dyer's "But Beautiful" is one of the best books about jazz I've ever read, so I decided to give this a go.
A few chapters in, I began to wonder: Why am I reading thi...more
A few chapters in, I began to wonder: Why am I reading thi...more
A collection of loosely linked -- well, not travel pieces, really, just essays from someone who's ended up moving around rather a lot. As a narrator, Dyer's enormously endearing as he wanders around, equal parts gung-ho and despondent, alternately quoting Auden and dropping acid. For Dyer the writer, Englishness -- or a characteristic I like to pretend is Englishness -- is a tremendous boon. Because this is really a Journey book, about a Seeker on a sort of stumbling, stoned search for transcend...more
Geoff Dyer races toward oblivion in this collection of travel essays, on a worldwide search for tranquility. He only sometimes finds it, and then only when he isn't looking. You would think, for example, that walking through Paris with a beautiful woman would translate easily into an idyllic experience, but you would be wrong. There are beautiful passages in the later stories about the transcendence to be found observing ancient Roman ruins and the beauty of the world seen through the right pair...more
I feel very lucky that I've seen Tarkovsky's _Stalker_, because that movie plays a large role in the thematic architecture of this book of what is, ostensibly at least, a book of travel essays. For what it's worth, I'm not sure I got the same thing out of _Stalker_ that Dyer did, but well, different strokes, and he does get a lot out of the concept of "the zone."
Anyhow, this is a really wonderful book-- lots of great writing, mostly, with some admirably strange adventures along the way. I am rea...more
Anyhow, this is a really wonderful book-- lots of great writing, mostly, with some admirably strange adventures along the way. I am rea...more
The first essay is very entertaining. The second essay is entertaining. And... so on down the line.
Here is my problem with this collection: there is a formula that emerges after you read about three of the essays. Here is it:
a) Dyer arrives in a foreign city.
b) Dyer quickly befriends a fellow traveler/crank/drugged-out loony.
c) Said Loony introduced Dyer to Very Hot Girl.
d) Dyer & Loony acquire some drugs.
e) Dyer & Loony wander around foreign city. Insert scenery.
f) VHG drifts in for...more
Here is my problem with this collection: there is a formula that emerges after you read about three of the essays. Here is it:
a) Dyer arrives in a foreign city.
b) Dyer quickly befriends a fellow traveler/crank/drugged-out loony.
c) Said Loony introduced Dyer to Very Hot Girl.
d) Dyer & Loony acquire some drugs.
e) Dyer & Loony wander around foreign city. Insert scenery.
f) VHG drifts in for...more
I don't usually enjoy books of short stories as I find by time you get to grips with the character it's over. Here however, although the majority of the stories are unlinked, the author is consistent and having read previous 'novels' by Geoff about 'Jeff' I could quickly grasp the honest and frank, sometimes very unfulfilled, character. To me the bane of travel literature is the listing of place names and insignificant details that do nothing more than prove the author has actually been to the p...more
It was the title that drew me to this book. That, and the fact that Steve Martin put in a good word on the back cover. Something about his disappointment, actually. (That Geoff was actually not just a 'one-hit- wonder' HA!) But the style of humor and writing in general reminds me of Steve Martin's humor and is at times like reading an inside joke that you, as the reader, are not IN on. Which is one of the things I like about it...slightly off-putting but if you stick in there, some laugh out lou...more
I really got to loathe Mr. Dyer. I really thought he was a selfish shallow bastard by the end. He made me uncomfortable and afraid of ever running into him at a bar or something. I'm actually surprised by the number of people who enjoyed this book and was entertained for about .000008th of a second to re-read it and therefore rejudge. But then I came to my senses. I remember hating the person and not the writing which is why it gets any stars.
Jan 31, 2013
John Halbrook
added it
I read one of his previous books, "Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi," and was intrigued enough to buy this one second-hand. I must admit to a certain amount of exasperation with his prose and his pose-- the world weary, gonzo journalist/ writer who has had too many women wanting to bed him and far too many drugs in too many exotic places. Just picture a jet-setting Hemingway on drugs instead of alcohol. You get the picture.
"I had unblocked all sorts of cafe chakras and was experiencing absolut...more
"I had unblocked all sorts of cafe chakras and was experiencing absolut...more
Geoff Dyer writes some of the most subtly hilarious essays I have ever read. Between this work and Out of Sheer Rage, I have come to a level of appreciation for Dyer that transcends most of the other writers of this sort I have encountered. Despite being essentially unlikable, Dyer has a sincerity in his expression of that nature that lends him sympathy.
Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It is essentially a travelogue, but a disjointed one, told out of order, but threaded together with...more
Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It is essentially a travelogue, but a disjointed one, told out of order, but threaded together with...more
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Perhaps the best post modern travel experiences captured into a book ever. Dyer writes from airports to photography to hotels to loneliness to women ( all of which I can easily relate to) in his own inimitable style - fusion of history, memoir, travelogue, philosophy creating arguably an unique way of looking and perceiving things.
My sister gave me this book years ago and I was turned off by the title. But I finally read it, and yes, don't judge a book by...
It's actually a series of essays by Geoff Dyer about trips he's taken in the US, Europe, Southeast Asia, eventually, the Middle East. This wasn't a book in which I particularly liked the protagonist (either as a hero or an anti-hero) but it was fun tagging along on his travels for a few days. When my sister originally gave the book to me, I was visiting India, but of c...more
It's actually a series of essays by Geoff Dyer about trips he's taken in the US, Europe, Southeast Asia, eventually, the Middle East. This wasn't a book in which I particularly liked the protagonist (either as a hero or an anti-hero) but it was fun tagging along on his travels for a few days. When my sister originally gave the book to me, I was visiting India, but of c...more
I’ve enjoyed Dyer’s fiction and nonfiction, so picked this up after happening across it being sold by a street vendor. I was on my way to sit outside and have a glass of wine before meeting people for dinner and was looking for something light and entertaining. I am happy to say this was just the right pick.
Essentially a book of travel essays, but more the musings of the author as he happened to be traveling, I found it very amusing. Dyer describes various relationships that he entered into whi...more
Essentially a book of travel essays, but more the musings of the author as he happened to be traveling, I found it very amusing. Dyer describes various relationships that he entered into whi...more
A strong collection of essays, mostly about travel and mostly read while I was travelling. It was a bit like being on a trip with a knowingly pretentious friend -- mostly amusing but, at times, still pretentious. I particularly liked many of the literary quotes Dyer calls up, his almost anti-Theroux attitude towards overly researching or learning about stuff you'd expect someone to tell you about in a travel essay. In a sense, he travels as I tend to -- with the idea that if something is worth k...more
Geoff Dyer is blessed with a style that appears so effortless that it seems lazy. Or even provocatively lazy. It feels like writing for people that can't be bothered to do it, in fact. And yet, in his nonchalant, throwaway manner, he gets straight to the nub of things without wasting his time with context, plot, character, literariness. All these things are good. As is his frank, even naive way of telling compromising, incriminating stories about his own drug use, selfishness, fecklessness and i...more
Jul 20, 2009
Clare
added it
Completely enjoyable. To quibble over Dyer's life choices or (occasionally, and somewhat) offensive opinions is to deny yourself of an easy and mostly intelligent read that takes you many places you might not visit in this life: Cambodia, Leptis Magna, or...Detroit. Your own desire or reluctance to visit the cities he describes does not magnify or diminish each essay; and such tourist traps as Paris are given a new look when Dyer tells of an afternoon walk through the 11e with a woman he has per...more
and humorous in places. I would have liked to give it a 2 1/2. It is too well written to get a 2. But his self-demeaning characterizations, seemed so, well, self-congratulatory. Here's me refusing to buy a bottle of coke from a poor third-world kid--aren't I naughty? But so very honest. Me, an intellectual, no, definitely not. I kept feeling like he was waiting for someone to pat him on the head and say "oh, you naughty scamp." Someone should tell him that boyishness isn't charming after a certa...more
Read mostly in short bursts each morning while drying my hair. This book is so not about yoga. It keeps pretending also not not be about antiquity, but it is actually about antiquity quite a bit, and about drugs, and loneliness. I almost gave it up several times, when the macho drug-doing/"I'm not being macho, I'm too scared to sleep with this woman, oh okay, I'll sleep with her if she forces me to" stuff got to be a leetle much, but stayed with it for the travelogues, and the art-writing, which...more
I do like a good travelogue and can more than appreciate many of the qualities that spur both Geoff Dyer's wanderlust and his stagnation. I have a harder time getting over Dyer's über self-conscious windbaggery. He seems to take great pains to explain how he is cowardly (to prove he is macho and devil may care brave) deeply troubled by and nervous around attractive women (to prove he is just naturally sexually magnetic) and lazy. OK...that last one he seems pretty comfy with.
It's not altogether...more
It's not altogether...more
I got a water-stained, mildewed copy of this book for $1.50 in a pile of drecky best seller romances in a little (there are not any other kind here) bookstore on Ko Tao. I like Dyer. This is a book written by an intellectual who manages to not sound like one- his writing is unaffected, sweetly self-examining, meandering, and philosophical. He can talk about John Berger and Auden, Rilke and Borges while also sailing through ripping travel yarns and romantic misadventures. Refreshingly genre-defyi...more
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Geoff Dyer was born in Cheltenham, England, in 1958. He was educated at the local grammar school and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. For more information visit Geoff Dyer's official website: www.geoffdyer.com
He is the author of four novels: Paris Trance, The Search, The Colour of Memory, and, most recently, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi; a critical study of John Berger, Ways of Telling; two c...more
More about Geoff Dyer...
He is the author of four novels: Paris Trance, The Search, The Colour of Memory, and, most recently, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi; a critical study of John Berger, Ways of Telling; two c...more
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“A restaurant on the moon could not have had less atmosphere.”
—
1 person liked it
“We'd never seen anything as green as these rice paddies. It was not just the paddies themselves: the surrounding vegetation - foliage so dense the trees lost track of whose leaves were whose - was a rainbow coalition of one colour: green. There was an infinity of greens, rendered all the greener by splashes of red hibiscus and the herons floating past, so white and big it seemed as if sheets hung out to dry had suddenly taken wing. All other colours - even purple and black - were shades of green. Light and shade were degrees of green. Greenness, here, was less a colour than a colonising impulse. Everything was either already green - like a snake, bright as a blade of grass, sidling across the footpath - or in the process of becoming so. Statues of the Buddha were mossy, furred with green.”
—
1 person liked it
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