As I Was Saying

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Description

As I Was Saying is a swirling conversation with the reader on everything from travel to dogs and cats, from sport and swearing to the pleasures of idleness. Punctuated at regular intervals by talks Dessaix has given on a wide range of subjects, as well as by some of his most incisive journalism, the conversation invites the reader to join a leisurely guided tour of his chamber of curiosities, featuring pieces collected all over the globe from across the centuries. Whether writing home from Vladivostock or Damascus, discussing what makes for good conversation or thinking aloud about the paintings, poems and books he loves, Dessaix always writes with an intimacy and attentiveness that beguile, entertain and make his readers eager for new discoveries.

Reviews

A teasing grab-bag of thoughts, memories, anecdotes, and effronteries that achieves luxurious coherence. --Weekend Australian
In an era where the art of good conversation is replaced by tweets and status updates, Dessaix represents a refreshing blast from the good old days when thoughts longer than 140 characters actually mattered. --Illawarra Mercury
It is a wonderfully rich and challenging piece. This book is energised with color and the virtuosity of language. It is a book to muse over by taking a walk. --Christopher Bantick, Sunday Magazine, Hobart

No description can do justice to this moving work. . . . Gracefully written, saturated with the sorrows and joys of years. --Kirkus Reviews on Twilight of Love

Author Bio

Robert Dessaix is a writer, translator, broadcaster and occasional essayist. His best-known books, all translated into several European languages, are his autobiography A Mother's Disgrace, the novels Night Letters and Corfu, a collection of essays and short stories (And So Forth) and the travel memoirs Twilight of Love and Arabesques.