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The Colour of Memory

By Geoff Dyer
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3.85 goodreads logo

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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
The Colour of Memory by Geoff Dyer captures the lives and experiences of a group of young friends living in 1980s Brixton. The novel explores their everyday adventures and struggles as they navigate the complexities of work, relationships, and the pursuit of creative dreams. With vibrant settings and vivid characters, the book offers an evocative snapshot of a transformative era.
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

You might enjoy this novel if you appreciate a vivid exploration of life in 1980s London, infused with wanderlust, youthful dilemmas, and the pursuit of meaning. It's ideal for those who enjoy character-driven narratives filled with wit, humour, and poignant observations about friendship and the passage of time.

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'Not since Colin MacInnes's City of Spades and Absolute Beginners thirty years ago has a novel stuck a flick-knife so accurately into the young and marginal city' The Times

'Not since Colin MacInnes's City of Spades and Absolute Beginners thirty years ago has a novel stuck a flick-knife so accurately into the young and marginal city' The Times

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

In the race to be first in describing the lost generation of the 1980s, Geoff Dyer in The Colour of Memory leads past the winning post. "We're not lost," one of his hero's friends says, "we're virtually extinct".

It is a small world in Brixton that Dyer commemorates, of council flat and instant wasteland, of living on the dole and the scrounge, of mugging, which is merely begging by force, and of listening to Callas and Coltrane. It is the nostalgia of the DHSS Bohemians, the children of unsocial security, in an urban landscape of debris and wreckage.

Not since Colin MacInnes's City of Spades and Absolute Beginners thirty years ago has a novel stuck a flick-knife so accurately into the young and marginal city. A low-keyed style and laconic wit touch up The Colour of Memory.

The Times

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Set in 1980s London, The Colour of Memory authentically captures the vibrancy of Brixton and the lives within it. Dyer's prose, reminiscent of Martin Amis, finds a balance between acute observations and a laconic wit. The novel has been compared for its striking portrayal of urban youth to works by Colin MacInnes, painting vivid tableaux of street life and lost generations with a compassionate touch.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9780857862716

Publisher: Canongate Books

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 08 November 2012

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Canongate Books

Edition: Main

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 18.0mm

Width: 129.0mm

Height: 198.0mm

Weight: 195g

Pages: 288

Collections

Fiction General Fiction Geoff Dyer Literary Fiction

About the Author

Geoff Dyer is the author of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi and three previous novels, as well as nine non-fiction books. Dyer has won the Somerset Maugham Prize, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, a Lannan Literary Award, the International Center of Photography's 2006 Infinity Award for writing on photography and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' E.M. Forster Award. In 2009 he was named GQ's Writer of the Year. He won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2012 and was a finalist in 1998. His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. He lives in London.

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