Geoff Dyer's "Working the Room" is a brilliant book. Collection of essays and reviews published between the years 1999-2010, this cleverly contrived work of 400 pages is a delight to read. Cleverly contrived, since the contents are neatly divided into four parts : Visuals, Verbals, Variables and Personals : photos, words, music and memories. If only we could put our confused preoccupations into some such meaningful order, it might look like there was some purpose in what we did.

Dyer starts out with this quote:

There are writers for whom no forms exist; too clever for novels, too sceptical for poetry, too verbose for the aphorism, all that is left to them is the essay - the least appropriate medium for the foiled.
- Don Paterson

I' hope to write about Working the Room on and off for the next few days.

image credit : Amazon.com