White Sands - by Geoff Dyer (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this witty, searching collection of travel essays, Geoff Dyer journeys to remote and storied places, exploring art, time, and the restless nature of being alive.

In this meditation on movement and meaning, Geoff Dyer reflects on why we go where we go, what we hope to find there, and how places, both real and imagined, shape our inner lives. From the deserts of the American Southwest to remote corners of China, Tahiti, and Scandinavia, he traces the strange mixture of anticipation, disappointment, wonder, and revelation that accompanies being elsewhere.

White Sands explores Dyer's fascination with landscapes, art, and cultural sites--ancient ruins, land art installations, sacred spaces, and vast, empty terrains--and the ideas they stir. Along the way, he considers the stories we attach to places, the gap between expectation and experience, and the way travel can sharpen awareness not only of the world, but of time, mortality, and attention itself.

Written in Dyer's characteristically intimate, sharp, and playful voice, White Sands captures the exhilaration and unease of being on the move, where travel is an ongoing attempt to understand what it means to be here, now, and briefly passing through.

About the Author

Geoff Dyer is the award-winning author of many books, including The Last Days of Roger Federer, Out of Sheer Rage, Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It, Zona, See/Saw, and the essay collection Otherwise Known as the Human Condition (winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism). Dyer is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a writer in residence at the University of Southern California. His books have been translated into twenty-six languages.