AUGUST 2014 - AudioFile
With a somewhat frenetic and breathless pace, Jonathan Cowley narrates Dyer’s account of a trip aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH. Dyer’s account is that of a person who exhibits a childlike wonder at all that he sees: Not only is he a Brit in a foreign land, but he’s a civilian who is trying to make sense of the military. Cowley’s narration is a charming match to the text. His staccato delivery suggests someone who is experiencing information overload yet trying to describe and give understanding to everything that he sees and hears. It’s all enjoyable and worth hearing. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - Clancy Martin
Being "at sea"being awkward, off-balance, confused, trying once more to fit in when you know you can never fit inis where Geoff Dyer is most…well, if not most comfortable, most himself, most alive. He's a philosophical naturalist, a realist. He loves facts and details; he wants to experience the world as it is, like his hero Albert Camus…But Dyer is more Sancho Panza than he is Sisyphus…His struggles are in keeping up with the quixotic nature of the worlds that, despite his own better instincts, he can't help pursuing.
Publishers Weekly
01/27/2014
This persona-driven work follows Dyer (But Beautiful; The Missing of the Somme) during the two weeks he spent as writer in residence on the USS George H.W. Bush, interviewing the aircraft carrier’s crew, as well as members of the U.S. navy and taking notes on the ship’s general operations. Yet, as is his custom, Dyer makes no pretenses about being a reporter or capturing facts. He claims early on that “the essence of character is the inability to get used to things,” and though he makes due aboard the vast and bustling ship, he knows himself well. The result is an often hilarious and aphoristic, short-chaptered account written by a British essayist who is fascinated by American culture. Always the outsider, Dyer spends most of his time thinking about food, comparing himself to other writers in a self-deprecating manner, or lamenting the ship’s many inconveniences. Dyer is most engaging when he’s coming to terms with his own anxieties, or making sharp observations about the accomplishments of others; he is perhaps at his least sophisticated when whining or indulging his own base desires. Though this isn’t Dyer’s finest work of nonfiction, and he hasn’t tackled his subject matter to its full potential, it is still a highly entertaining read. With color photographs not seen by PW. Agent: Wylie Agency. (May)
From the Publisher
Generous, illuminating and very funny.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Dyer stows himself away on an American aircraft carrier, fortunately, with all his hilarious tics in place. A rare kind of nonfiction, with sentences that keep on giving long after your eye has sailed on.” —Steve Martin
“Hilarious. . . . [Dyer is] one of the funniest writers alive.” —Chicago Tribune
“[Dyer] is one of our greatest living critics, not of the arts but of life itself, and one of our most original writers.” —New York Magazine
“Urgent, funny, utterly in-the-moment and achingly honest. . . . Like the captain, like the crew, like the ship, Dyer’s superb book constantly reiterates its excellence. It virtually stands to attention on its own.” —Philip Hoare, The Guardian (London)
“This is what I love about Geoff Dyer’s work: His feet are never on the ground. . . . He’s a philosophical naturalist, a realist.” —Clancy Martin, The New York Times Book Review
“Remarkable. . . . Earnest but never unctuous, light-handed but stirring.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
“[Another Great Day At Sea] shares sea legs with David Foster Wallace’s brilliant cruise-ship essay ‘A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.’ . . . For all the snap and snark in his prose, Dyer can’t tamp down his generosity of spirit forever.” —NPR.org
“Dyer is to essays what Anthony Bourdain is to food. . . . That rare writer one reads not to learn something new but to enjoy his sidelong take on a subject.” —Los Angles Times
“A total delight. . . . Stuffed with wonderful anecdotes.” —The Independent (London)
“[Dyer is] likely the greatest writer of nonfiction we have. . . . He’s the quintessential everyman through which any reader could substitute his or her own imagination.” —New York Observer
“Filled with curiosity and with admiration.” —The New York Times
“Dyer deftly blends two stories into one short book: a closely observed, respectful account of life and work aboard an aircraft carrier, and the comic adventure of being ‘the oldest and tallest person on ship,’ ducking and stooping his head constantly, struggling with the food and the noise of jets.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“A great day is any day you get to read Geoff Dyer, and this book is no exception. Witty, empathetic, and insatiably curious, he is the perfect guide to the floating world of an American aircraft carrier. A perfect night landing on the ‘postage stamp,’ with élan to spare.” —Sam Lipsyte
“A revelation to lovers of literature, who’ll learn about the military from a master stylist, and to those who love ships and planes, who’ll have the pleasure of a new perspective from a great writer. . . . [Marked by] precise observation, unerring word choice, drop-dead sense of humor and the absurd.” —The Oregonian
“The average writer would make this disparity into fish-out-of-water commentary, but Dyer starts there and then goes off into space, spinning his observations into something profound and beautiful that socks you in the gut.” —Flavorwire
“Thoroughly enjoyable. . . . Installing a writer of Dyer’s baroquely sensitive and self-conscious temperament aboard an American aircraft carrier stationed in the Persian Gulf is obviously a stroke of genius.” —Salon.com
“As concentratedly funny as anything [Dyer’s] written.” —Slate
“When Dyer delves into a specific topic, he delves deeply. . . . As always, he laces his observations with comedy and captivating storytelling.” —Huffington Post
“Dyer has a rare talent. . . . By the end of Another Great Day at Sea, the carrier is no longer forbiddingly otherworldly. . . . [Dyer has] moved from being a dispassionate observer to someone who prays for those who go to sea in ships.” —Financial Times
AUGUST 2014 - AudioFile
With a somewhat frenetic and breathless pace, Jonathan Cowley narrates Dyer’s account of a trip aboard the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH. Dyer’s account is that of a person who exhibits a childlike wonder at all that he sees: Not only is he a Brit in a foreign land, but he’s a civilian who is trying to make sense of the military. Cowley’s narration is a charming match to the text. His staccato delivery suggests someone who is experiencing information overload yet trying to describe and give understanding to everything that he sees and hears. It’s all enjoyable and worth hearing. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2014-04-17
Novelist and nonfiction author Dyer (Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room, 2012, etc.) goes to sea for an immersive, sometimes-sobering ride aboard an American aircraft carrier.What's a fussy eater who's averse to sharing a room, too tall for cramped corridors and who bears an abhorrence for anything to do with engines or oil aboard the USS George H.W. Bush? From the moment he arrived on the flight deck, there was never a dull moment, which also meant there was never a moment's peace. But the crash and thunder of jets taking off competed with a stultifying muddle of military acronyms, which Dyer tried futilely to comprehend. Of course, this British writer noted for subverting genres is much more interested in the people. He describes a Whitman-esque quality of a "fulfilled and industrious America, each person indispensable to the workings of the larger enterprise," finding himself happily "surrounded by American voices, American friendliness, American politeness." Dyer also locates an unexpected poetics of carrier life, the terrible beauty and lyrical maneuvers of a machine of war (and the self-perpetuating requirement of oil to make the machine go). The author rejects the microminutiae beloved of many reporters, instead capturing a broader canvas with painterly precision. Though he explodes a few persistent myths, more than once, Dyer was moved by a promotion ceremony, an act of consideration, honor or devotion to duty. Ultimately, even as mere observer, he felt privileged to be there yet just as eager to resume his normal life back on "the beach." Though respectful, generally admiring, of those in military service, Dyer remained ambivalent; he fires broadsides against numbing (if necessary) routine, the simplistic thinking of religious conservatism prevalent on board and the inherent contradictions of having a military presence off the coasts of other lands in a way that would never be countenanced near American shores.As usual for Dyer, eccentrically intriguing, occasionally dipping into boyish wonder and spasms of sentiment.