Another Great Day At Sea:  Life Aboard The USS George H.W. Bush, by Geoff Dyer

So, this book has a bit of a story behind it.  When I arrived back to my apartment last week, there was a card reminding me to pick up a letter.  Unfortunately, it was at the local post office in Vancouver, with a postage due of $3.78 because the Naval Historical Institute sent the package to my previous address and did not remember to update their records accordingly.  So, after a busy Monday evening, I had to pay my roommate back for obtaining the package the book came in, and he had a story to tell about the incompetence and understaffed nature of the local post office branch, which was quite entertaining to listen to.  I mention this because although this book is a short one at under 200 pages, from what I have seen so far it has the same sort of humorous mock-irritated tone as the preceding comments I made, and since I enjoy reading about irritating but well-written experiences myself, having written more than a few of such accounts myself, so far I have been greatly pleased by the book and am glad I have the chance to add it to my library.

I had never heard of the author before, who is apparently a British writer of some humor.  Early in this book there is a listing of his previous books, and they include some titles I am likely to look up, such as “Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It,” and “Anglo-English Attitudes:  Essays, Reviews and Misadventures 1984-99.”  The author’s material is comic gold.  Here, for example, is the author’s comment about his first impressions on the aircraft carrier he visited:  “It was like staying in a cottage in Wales that had been epically extended an converted to nuclear power.  Every time I pulled myself up to full height I was at risk.  So I bobbed and waved, ducked and stooped (8).”  What’s not to enjoy about an author who has such a vivid power of description and such a skewed view of the world so as to make even the most mundane of experiences of being an observant fish out of water so entertaining and so memorable?  Anyway, I expect to enjoy this book immensely, even if it did cost me $3.78 to rescue it from the post office.