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The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings Hardcover – May 3, 2022
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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
"The Last Days of Roger Federer speaks from within the finitude that holds sway over every human attempt to defy the odds and make a success of one’s life or art . . . Memorable." ―Robert Pogue Harrison, The New York Review of Books
"[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 : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.35 x 1.2 x 9.35 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #237,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #261 in Biographies of Artists, Architects & Photographers (Books)
- #322 in Movie History & Criticism
- #7,069 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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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the writing quality beautiful and readable. They describe the book as superb, well-written, and worth their time. The art direction is described as artistic and beautiful. Readers appreciate the author's wit and humor. However, some feel the pacing is slow and the theme is interesting, while others think it's nothing but a collection of thoughts.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers appreciate the writing quality. They find the sentences luminous and the voice readable. However, some readers feel the book reads like an endless stream of diary entries that were revised to sound pedantic.
"...I have to admit that this way of writing suits me very well...." Read more
"...For all its flimsiness, the essay is thrown in a nice, readable voice." Read more
"Dyer’s “But Beautiful” is a superb book. This book reads like an endless stream of diary entries that were revised in order to sound as pedantic as..." Read more
"...The theme is fascinating, the writing beautiful, and you feel smarter/wiser by the end even though you didn't really have to work at it much...." Read more
Customers find the book excellent and worth reading. They appreciate its well-bound quality and find it engaging.
"Dyer’s “But Beautiful” is a superb book...." Read more
"...It was by turns (and, frequently, simultaneously) wise, hilarious, and confounding...." Read more
"Arrived ahead of schedule. Great piece of book, well bound, feels great in the hand...." Read more
"Geoff Dyer is not an easy read but well worth your time. Because when you finish he's given you so much to think about. "..." Read more
Customers appreciate the art direction. They describe it as an artistic endeavor and beautiful.
"...The result might not please everyone, but it is certainly worth a good look. Well recommended." Read more
"Beautiful But..." Read more
"Wonderful book about coming to the end of a career, an artistic endeavor, a life..." Read more
Customers appreciate the wit of the book. They find it funny, wry, and unexpected.
"...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..." Read more
"...It was by turns (and, frequently, simultaneously) wise, hilarious, and confounding...." Read more
"...Funny, wry, sad. His comments on Kerouac made me want to cry, and on Dylan he made me laugh. Good especially for recent retirees?" Read more
Customers have different views on the book's theme. Some find it fascinating and interesting, with beautiful writing and a wider cultural perspective. Others describe it as nothing but musings, a pointless regurgitation of thoughts, and boring.
"Geoff Dyer has produced an interesting meditation on the arc of life...." Read more
"...It's not, well, a "book." It's indulgent and pointless. He can write a sentence, but so can a lot of people who have a lot more to say...." Read more
"...The theme is fascinating, the writing beautiful, and you feel smarter/wiser by the end even though you didn't really have to work at it much...." Read more
"This book is heavily hyped everywhere yet is nothing but a bunch of musings...." Read more
Customers find the pacing slow and need an editor. They describe the book as long-winded, ornery, and off-topic.
"...It's not, well, a "book." It's indulgent and pointless. He can write a sentence, but so can a lot of people who have a lot more to say...." Read more
"...(or the part of it I was willing to plow through) was long-winded, ornery, off-topic, and just, simply put, boring." Read more
"Indulgent and badly in need of a ruthless editor..." Read more
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Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2022We, mortals, are fascinated by the events defined as “the last.” This fascination is reflected even in the titles of our films, paintings, and books, such as The Last Supper, Last Tango in Paris, or The Last of the Mohicans. The newest book by Geoff Dyer, The Last Days of Roger Federer, is very much in the vein of our interest.
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.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2022Could Dyer make a simple statement in one simple sentence? Or even two? Or must each be pulled along and through and under and over every permutation possible? Get one with it fella! After one hundred pages, right where he's complaining about not finishing books, I'm ready to throw in the towel from too many illusions, evations, ellipses, eclipses, dark moons, sun spots. He's Alain de Botton in a high school auditorium looking for attention. And he's certainly no Guy Davenport.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2023If Dyer belies his boomer vintage in this reflection on aging, career-endings, and other worries pertaining to what to do with yourself in old age, you still get the sense that his command of voice and theme are potent tools of the essay form. Dyer, refraining from much about Roger Federer, in fact, returns to many of his favorite subjects: D.H. Lawrence, Bob Dylan, Jazz, the beats, and offers musings on the philosophical relation between creativity, vitality, and the waning powers proper to all acts of the will. Most of the book is about Nietzsche, but Dyer does not have much of a grip on him. For all its flimsiness, the essay is thrown in a nice, readable voice.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2022Dyer’s “But Beautiful” is a superb book. This book reads like an endless stream of diary entries that were revised in order to sound as pedantic as possible. I can’t think of another book by someone of Dyer’s talent that is so self-referential, so show-offy, and so arid. I wish I hadn’t bought it.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2022Thoroughly confused as to why this book got good reviews. It's a pointless regurgitation of every thought this fellow has had in the past couple of years. It's not, well, a "book." It's indulgent and pointless. He can write a sentence, but so can a lot of people who have a lot more to say. Not surprised that he is a fan of Nietzsche and his pithy aphorisms -- would that he himself were half as pithy! In a book that is supposed to be about endings, all I keep thinking is, dear god, when will this end?
- Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2023I am head over heels in love with this book. It felt as though large parts of it were written to me and for me.
It was by turns (and, frequently, simultaneously) wise, hilarious, and confounding. Among other things, I find Geoff Dyer our best living writer on music and musicians - for me, worth the price of admission alone.
As the mixed reviews online indicate, he’s not for everyone - which is neither Mr. Dyer’s fault nor the fault of the readers who can’t connect with him. Jerry Garcia once said that the Grateful Dead were like black licorice - not everyone likes black licorice, but those who do, really like it. So too with Mr. Dyer.
My only quibble came with the section near the end on DMT, super-cool friends, Joshua Tree, etc - it came across as precious and, bizarrely, a bit twee, exactly the opposite of what one would expect good writing about DMT (which I have never tried) would be. But this is indeed a quibble.
Bottom line: be prepared either to love it or hate it. And what is wrong with that?
- Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2022I picked this up on the strength of strong reviews. I gather Geoff Dyer is the darling of some critics, but I just did not see the point of this book at all.
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.
Top reviews from other countries
- Michael G. FrancisReviewed in Canada on October 13, 2022
2.0 out of 5 stars A long book that misses the mark.
I found this book long and uninteresting. It’s about facing the future when the future has little to offer. The best is in the rear view mirror. The author is clever and , often witty, but regrettably, not often enough.
- john westonReviewed in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is not about Roger Federer !
Beautiful written - erudite and funny - I shall be trying more of Geoffs books in the near future - Many thanks
- ShuggyReviewed in Australia on June 25, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Not just about Roger
Good read about life,music ,literature,film and sport and reflections on getting older,(wiser?)
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NicC.B.Reviewed in Canada on September 6, 2022
1.0 out of 5 stars The last days of Roger Federe: and other endings
Vous serez déçus! Fausse représentation si vous pensiez lire un livre sur Federer! Ce ne l'est pas. C'est sûr les fins en général, et l'auteur parle beaucoup de lui... Je ne l'ai pas fini et ai acheté une vraie biographie de Federer! haha!
- Tristan KleinschmidtReviewed in Australia on May 10, 2024
2.0 out of 5 stars Not my cup of tea
Really thought I was going to get more about Roger Federer based on the title.
I'm sure for folks with artistic or philosophical leanings, this book could be a more enjoyable read. For me, it was a surprise I managed to read it all; maybe I should have quit reading (small spoiler aler: like some of the discussion from the author...)