Geoff Dyer on Punctuality

11.30am, 30 November 2008
The Horse Hospital, Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1HX

Geoff Dyer was born at 5.34pm on 5 June, 1958. His parents lived in the Cotswold town of Cheltenham. Reliable if unflamboyant people, they instilled in Geoff a great respect for being on time. His Italian publisher, Gianni Borgo was late for everything: late for meetings,  always missing deadlines and  rarely publishing a book within a year of the advertised date. Then he dropped dead and became, appropriately enough, the late Gianni Borgo. Let that be a lesson to you all. Every bit as unyielding  as her husband, Geoff's wife, Rebecca, stood by his side  when he explained to a new Nigerian friend that this friendship could not continue if  he did not improve his time-keeping.

In his sermon, Geoff will explore the historical sacrifices and successes of punctual people and the trouble caused by low-lifes who waste other people's time. He will urge us to be less sloppy about time-keeping, a virtue which he sees as increasingly threatened by a culture in which mobile phones have made arrangements increasingly  approximate and flexible.

Geoff Dyer is the author of three novels: Paris Trance, The Search, The Colour of Memory; a critical study of John Berger, Ways of Telling; a collection of essays, Anglo-English Attitudes; and five genre-defying titles: But Beautiful (winner of a 1992 Somerset Maugham Prize, short-listed for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize), The Missing of the Somme, Out of Sheer Rage (a finalist, in the US,  for a National Book Critics Circle Award), Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It (winner of the 2004 W. H. Smith Best Travel Book Award), and, most recently, The Ongoing Moment  (winner of the ICP Infinity Award for Writing on Photography). A new novel, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, will be published by Canongate next spring.

The sermon will start at 11.30 am prompt. Latecomers will be severely admonished.

Tickets cost £10.
To book call 020 7833 1010 or e-mail info@theschooloflife.com