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The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings Hardcover – May 3, 2022
| Geoff Dyer (Author) Find all the books, read about the author, and more. See search results for this author |
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One of Esquire's best books of spring 2022
An extended meditation on late style and last works from "one of our greatest living critics" (Kathryn Schulz, New York).
When artists and athletes age, what happens to their work? Does it ripen or rot? Achieve a new serenity or succumb to an escalating torment? As our bodies decay, how do we keep on? In this beguiling meditation, Geoff Dyer sets his own encounter with late middle age against the last days and last works of writers, painters, footballers, musicians, and tennis stars who’ve mattered to him throughout his life. With a playful charm and penetrating intelligence, he recounts Friedrich Nietzsche’s breakdown in Turin, Bob Dylan’s reinventions of old songs, J. M. W. Turner’s paintings of abstracted light, John Coltrane’s cosmic melodies, Bjorn Borg’s defeats, and Beethoven’s final quartets―and considers the intensifications and modifications of experience that come when an ending is within sight. Throughout, he stresses the accomplishments of uncouth geniuses who defied convention, and went on doing so even when their beautiful youths were over.
Ranging from Burning Man and the Doors to the nineteenth-century Alps and back, Dyer’s book on last things is also a book about how to go on living with art and beauty―and on the entrancing effect and sudden illumination that an Art Pepper solo or Annie Dillard reflection can engender in even the most jaded and ironic sensibilities. Praised by Steve Martin for his “hilarious tics” and by Tom Bissell as “perhaps the most bafflingly great prose writer at work in the English language today,” Dyer has now blended criticism, memoir, and humorous banter of the most serious kind into something entirely new. The Last Days of Roger Federer is a summation of Dyer’s passions, and the perfect introduction to his sly and joyous work.
- Print length304 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux
- Publication dateMay 3, 2022
- Dimensions6.35 x 1.2 x 9.35 inches
- ISBN-100374605564
- ISBN-13978-0374605568
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A masterful, beautiful, reluctantly moving book―that is, moving despite its subject being naturally moving, courting no pathos, shrewd and frank―and Dyer’s best in some time. Indeed, one of his best, period . . . [The Last Days of Roger Federer], if it heralds a late style, promises [this]: a powerful and funny mind, ranging across the canons of both art and experience, cutting closer toward deep truths, telling us what things are like when time is shortening." ―Charles Finch, Los Angeles Times
"The capaciousness of Dyer’s themes allow him to roam widely . . . [Dyer] has a joyous appreciation of the transcendent and the triumphant . . . Like Federer, it is a reserve of flair, touch, timing and a keen eye that keeps him in the game." ―Nicholas Wroe, The Guardian
"Affirming and moving . . . [Dyer's] wit, a distinctive and delicious blend of salty, sweet and snarky, is on frequent display in his wonderful book." ―Troy Jollimore, The Washington Post
"Dyer, having set out to write a book about endings, is drawn to endlessness, to the way that one thing leads to another . . . There are some gorgeous passages in The Last Days of Roger Federer, some marvelous bits of criticism, some enthralling descriptions of psychedelics." ―Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times
"Calling a book a 'tour de force' almost certainly means it isn’t, but this book…is a tour de force." ―Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
"[Dyer is] a writer who loves to frolic in the field of ideas as freely as Federer deploys his unsurpassed array of shots . . . Reading this book is a joyful experience . . . Dyer’s exploration into mortality is often propelled into the sunlight." ―Joel Drucker, Racquet
"Dyer’s mix of sparkling prose, rich insight, and mordant wit suggests that a well-lived life is worth even the bitterest of endings. It makes for a smart, memorable take." ―Publishers Weekly
“Tennis, jazz, Dylan, movies, drugs, Nietzsche, Beethoven. So why am I laughing? Because Geoff Dyer once again melds commentary and observation with intellect and wit. Bouncing between criticism and memoir, Dyer is one of the few writers whose paragraphs I can immediately reread and get more from. The twists, turns, and delights abound, and when you finally put the book down you think, 'Oh, yes, I’ve always been this smart, haven’t I?'” ―Steve Martin
"More than its title would suggest, The Last Days of Roger Federer is an engaging series of meditations on mental and physical sunsets in the lives of painters, musicians, philosophers, poets, boxers, and of course tennis players. Dyer the stylist is at the top of his game here, serving up conundrums, paradoxes, logical binds, and other cerebral delights. Even his syntax is witty. This generous offering of Dyer’s insightful, often hilarious, take on art, life, and sports is a feast for his readers." ―Billy Collins, former United States Poet Laureate
"Just like Roger Federer's backhand Geoff Dyer's swing is a thing of beauty, complete with his signature follow through. He captures so much, touches so much and amuses the while. This form-blending book is extremely smart, wise, and simply plain fun. I am smarter for having read it. This is a great book." ―Percival Everett, author of The Trees
"Who can make the world new again like Geoff Dyer? For the low low price of a book, he will rearrange the art on the walls of your memory so that you might see it again, as if for the first time. The Last Days of Roger Federer is an inspired cultural and personal mediation as well as an unsurprising delight. To read it is to feel relief that, despite Dyer’s contention that his life’s theme is 'giving up,' he hasn’t." ―Sloane Crosley, author of Look Alive Out There
"Sumptuous, wide-ranging, streetwise, and precise, The Last Days of Roger Federer is a glorious ode to tennis, the arts, late style, and life itself. Full of surprises, hard truths, and deep feeling, this is a work like none other. Time remains undefeated, and yet Geoff Dyer's beautiful, unsparing book feels like it can go toe-to-toe with it––from the baseline or the net. An essential read." ―Rowan Ricardo Phillips, author of The Circuit: A Tennis Odyssey and Living Weapon
"The Last Days of Roger Federer showcases Geoff Dyer's gifts as one of the most distinctive writers of our times. Whether he's writing about tennis, Nietzsche, Burning Man or growing old, Dyer brings such impeccable observation, original intelligence, and laugh-out-loud wit to the page that you want to keep on reading more―the perfect quality for a book about endings." ―Maya Jasanoff, professor at Harvard University and author of The Dawn Watch
"Most authors use language to write about things. Geoff Dyer uses things to write about language. He’s a clever clogs but he’s one of us at the same time. Genius." ―Simon Armitage, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux (May 3, 2022)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 304 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0374605564
- ISBN-13 : 978-0374605568
- Item Weight : 1.05 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.35 x 1.2 x 9.35 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #50,679 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #47 in Artist & Architect Biographies
- #81 in Movie History & Criticism
- #1,387 in Memoirs (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

Geoff Dyer is the author of four novels and six other nonfiction books, including But Beautiful, which was awarded the Somerset Maugham Prize, and Out of Sheer Rage, which was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. The winner of a Lannan Literary Award, the International Centre of Photography's 2006 Infinity Award for writing on photography, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' E. M. Forster Award, Dyer is a regular contributor to many publications in the US and UK. He lives in London. For more information visit Geoff Dyer's official website: www.geoffdyer.com
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This is not a story about the last matches of a famous tennis player, although they occupy a prominent place in it, but about the last works of artists for whom life meant creating. As their lives drew to an end, their creativity changed along with the weakness of their physical bodies - sometimes it diminished completely, sometimes it manifested itself in a completely different way, like in Beethoven’s case where ‘the dissociation and disintegration themselves become artistic means.’
Geoff Dyer describes the last years of Beethoven, Nietzsche, Turner, and Coltrane, to name a few subjects of his analysis, looking at them with inquisitiveness, justified by the fact that, being a writer over 60, he cannot resist the thought that perhaps this book could be his last. While we usually know what our "firsts" were - the first kiss, the first job, the first sushi - we typically do not know what will be the "last." Rarely do we consciously decide to do something for the last time, such as in Dyer’s case, his Burning Man experience; he’s well aware that he’s doing it for the last time. Not because he is bored, but because he knows he won’t be able to experience anything new there. Coming back will be genuinely just a sentimental journey. The stigma of finality gives his experience the mark of freedom, and every moment becomes important.
The Last Days of Federer narrative reminded me of Emmanuel Carrere’s The Kingdom and a diary of someone I would like to talk to, partly because that person is exceptionally witty and partly because you never know which way the conversation will go. Will it become a description of a narcotic trance or an in-depth analysis of jazz? I have to admit that this way of writing suits me very well. By intertwining information that could be given in an excellent academic lecture with lightly examining his problems with tennis injuries, Geoff Dyer makes it easy for us to contemplate in a calm, unhurried way the fragile connection between creativity and age.
I did get that it was supposed to be a work of miscellany to some degree, but I thought the essays would be far more interconnected than they are. Many of the short pieces of prose are just a page or less, sometimes just a couple paragraphs. Chapters are just numbered, and sometimes are connected, sometimes not.
But I couldn't keep up with the style of writing. And sometimes looked for other stories to follow and found the same difficulty staying with his stream of consciousness style of writing.
It may be okay for some but it didn't do it for me.
I'm sure he's a pro, with a huge catalog of books, but again, not my cup of tea.
Top reviews from other countries
I never review books, but this one is excruciating in a way I find really quite offensive.








