****

THIS is the first in a new series, Writers in Residence, in which top writers and photographers are given access to “key institutions of the modern world” and describe and record what they find. Published in a high-end bookazine format, complete with sumptuous photography, it’s beautifully packaged.

judging by this first volume – in which erudite slacker Geoff Dyer spends a fortnight aboard a US aircraft carrier – it’s the start of something really interesting. Dyer is obsessed with Airfix models and has a boyish infatuation with the trappings of the US military. But, as becomes clear in this journal, he’s not really cut out for the life – the tension between the fuzzy yet gifted writer and the relentless orderliness of the boat’s culture is a source of much of the book’s delight.

He is unfailingly, engagingly himself throughout, a weedy couch potato among hard-bitten warriors – and cannot fail to admire them. This is a great read.

Dan Brotzel