Show notes
As the frontman of the band Fat White Family, you might know Lias Saoudi as an exciting, confrontational, and spanx-wearing rock phenomenon.You might also know him as a great writer, as evidenced by Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family and the Miracle of Failure, which he co-authored with Adelle Stripe (news on the Stripe front coming soon).But you probably don’t know him as a Warhammer-collecting, duck-eating, mortality-fearing handbag model.Today, that all changes.Welcome to The Library of Lazy Thinking Podcast, with me, your host, Glenn Fisher.In each episode, I'm joined by a guest from the world of books to talk about a specific book they'd like to put in the library.There's no plan and no agenda, just two people lazily thinking about literature.If you enjoy the show and would like to help us (and get your hands on a coveted Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark), you can become a supporter of the library by upgrading your subscription.But either way, please do like and share the show—it all helps.In this third episode, my very special guest is indeed the brilliant Lias Saoudi discussing his pick for the library, the 2016 memoir White Sands by Geoff Dyer.About LiasLias Saoudi is a writer, artist, and musician, and the frontman of Fat White Family. Born to a British mother and Algerian father, he grew up in the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, before moving to London and gaining a Fine Art degree from Slade School of Art. During the first UK lockdown, Lias began contributing a series of unflinching autobiographical pieces entitled Life Beyond the Neutral Zone to the online cultural hub, The Social Gathering. He has published in The New Frontier: Reflections From the Irish Border—an anthology of new writing from some of Ireland’s greatest contemporary authors marking the centenary of partition. He is also the debut guest editor of Ambit Pop, a new annual issue of the venerable quarterly arts magazine. His first book, Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family and the Miracle of Failure, co-written with Adelle Stripe, is described by Miranda Sawyer in The Observer as “the story of a band that’s always on the brink: of stardom, of madness, of brilliance, of disgrace”. It was published by White Rabbit Books in 2022.About GeoffGeoff 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. In 2015 he received a Windham Campbell Prize for non-fiction. His books have been translated into twenty-four languages. He currently lives in Los Angeles where he is Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California.Links to obscure (and not so obscure) things mentioned in this episode* Order White Sands and Lias’s book (with Adelle Stripe) Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family and the Miracle of Failure from my local independent bookshop in Sheffield here.* The Hyundai advert starring Lias and narrated by Rob Doyle.* The official video for the excellent song Feet by Fat White Family.* Find Lias Saoudi on Instagram here.* Find Glenn Fisher on Instagram here.About the LibraryThe Library of Lazy Thinking is a place to hang out and learn more about books. The library is free—like all libraries should be. But if you’d like to support the library, you can make a small monthly donation by becoming a paid member (and get an exclusive The Library of Lazy Thinking bookmark). All donations go back into the library, helping to organize live events, exclusive merchandise, and more podcasts.About GlennGlenn Fisher is a writer—wait, Glenn Fisher is me. I’m the one writing this. Let’s drop the third-person act. My writing has been published in Lunate, The Paris Bitter Hearts Pit, 3am Magazine, Dogmatika, and Litro Magazine. I write about books and interview other writers and creatives here in The Library of Lazy Thinking. I live in Sheffield and work as a freelance copywriter. I have had a best-selling non-fiction book published on the subject called The Art of the Click. It was published by Harriman House and shortlisted for Business Book of the Year. It has been translated into Simplified Chinese and Korean. I also have a dog called Pablo. He is harder to translate. Indeed, most of my life revolves around trying to understand his often unreasonable demands. Get full access to The Library of Lazy Thinking at lazythinking.substack.com/subscribe