I’m delighted to announce that Geoff Dyer will join us for a live webchat at 1pm on this Friday 28 June.

Geoff Dyer is the acclaimed author of books including The Colour Of Mercury, Paris Trance, Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It, and Jeff In Venice, Death In Varanasi. Recently he also published Zona, an audacious re-tracing of the journey to the room at the centre of Tarkovsky’s legendary film Stalker.

Most important for our purposes, however, as the reading group this month struggles through Sons and Lovers, is that fact that Dyer wrote a book called Out Of Sheer Rage: In The Shadow Of DH Lawrence back in 1997. This is one the most impressive appreciations of a famous writer that I have read - even though Dyer spends a great deal of the book avoiding writing about DH Lawrence. It’s warm and funny, and it’s full of great descriptions of life in Italy and of going about the business of being a writer. Somehow too, by misdirection and almost by magic, it provides a real insight into how a writer can burrow into your psyche and guide your life. Essential reading, in other words, and this is a great opportunity to put a question to someone with real feeling for DH Lawrence.

And, of course, there’s much more to Geoff Dyer than this one book, brilliant though it may be, so don’t feel you have to restrict yourself too much to Lawrence. Few people write as well as Dyer about travel, about what it means to be a writer, or, in fact, what it means to be alive. Plus, he’s very, very funny. In short, a good person to question. Go for it!

Geoff will be here live at 1pm on 28 June, but do please feel free to start making comments and posting questions beforehand. We’d hate you to miss out just because you can’t make the appointed time!