The best essayist of the past twenty years. This is an excellent sampler of his work that should lead you to bigger and better things.

A good overview of the earlier writing of imo the greatest living (as of this review) writer. The stories in this collection are excerpts from each of his books from 1965 to 1975. It is interesting to see his development as a writer from the first piece, a biographical one about the basketball star and future senator, Bill Bradley, to the last piece, one about a canoe trip in a birch bark canoe. He could write about any subject and make it interesting.

He is also supposed to be one of Jimmy Carter's favorite writers. And Jimmy Carter appears briefly in one of the pieces.

The piece about floating the Grand Canyon and the issues around the dams on the Colorado River, Encounters with the Arch Druid, is fascinating give the current conditions along that river.

His first book was published in 1965, his most recent was in 2018. Can't think of many authors with that long of a creative life, and it's possible he may have another one in him as he's still putting occasional pieces in The New Yorker.
This is a very good introduction to McPhee's writing.

This book contains 12 articles, or chapters, that were written by McPhee from 1965 to 1975. The strongest single element in these works is McPhee’s use of detail. In The Pine Barrens McPhee tells the story about New Jersey’s great forest, the Pine Barrens, and its back-woods inhabitants, the “pineys.” The piece is richly appointed with details about the history of the Pine Barrens, the people who live there, and the forest itself. Consider the following description of a piney named Bill Wasovwich:


“In a straight-backed chair near the doorway to the kitchen sat a young man with long black hair, who wore a visored red leather cap that was darkened with age. His shirt was course-woven and had eyelets down a V neck that was laced with a thong. His trousers were made of canvas, and he was wearing gum boots.”


McPhee lets us actually see this character by painting him in such vivid details. He gives us colors, hues, and textures that make his words spring to life, and leaves firm images in a readers mind. McPhee extends the use of details to the historical narratives he utilizes in his works. Here is an example from The Pine Barrens.


“The wizard” of the pines was Jerry Munyhon. He could make a cat’s paw come through a key hole. He could cause axes to chop wood by themselves. He could cause money to multiply. He was bulletproof. And he once caught a bullet that was fired at him and handed it back to the man who had done the shooting.” Page 77, paragraph 2.


McPhee had to talk to many piney to get all these wonderful details about the Munyhon, and he gives us a marvelous look into the folklore of the pineys as a result.

But McPhee is also keen on using details to describe things as well as people and history. In A Roomful of Hovings McPhee profiles the life and times of the New York Metropolitan Museum’s director, Thomas Hoving. He describes an important ivory artifact that Hoving procured for the museum called the Cross of Bury St. Edmunds in the following passage.


“Carved in walrus ivory, the two foot cross had sixty-three cryptically abbreviated inscriptions in Greek and Latin and a hundred and eight carved figures, which were sharply detailed and extraordinarily alive in their gestures and expressions….” Page 110, paragraph 1.


This began a long and detailed description of the artifact and its history that went on for four pages. I was enthralled by both the descriptive and historical details that McPhee used, and am convinced that he becomes an expert on anything he writes about.

Loved the creative non-fiction masterclass in McPhee’s “Searching for Marvin Gardens,” essay and some of the more sobering profiles, like the implications of nuclear technology in the future (The Curve of Binding Energy), down to the day to day life of a sort of savant-yokel-priestess that eats roadkill for sustenance in the name of conservation and ecological praxis (Travels In Georgia).

Didn’t really care for the sections borne out of his northeastern ivy league boarding school lens, so I skimmed the sections of his more biographical writing, and was far more interested in his way of seeing issues and topics far out of his element (in terms of class and scholastic background, especially)

A marvelous introduction to the depth and breadth of John McPhee, a journalist’s journalist, one of the finest living nonfiction writers. It is perhaps preferable to read these books in full, rather than the snippets that are presented here, but this is a great way to encounter McPhee for the first time, in this well-edited sampler of his greatest hits. I was familiar with a good number of these selections, but the book piqued my interest in several books of his that I haven’t read yet (particularly The Pine Barrens and A Roomful of Hovings and Other Profiles). Enthusiastically recommended, especially to would-be essayists and those with boundless curiosity about the known world.

Geology and geography for the normal person!

You know how every New Yorker article you've ever read takes some seemingly mundane item or place and then writes the hell out of it? It starts out interesting but by page 12, you remember you're not actually interested in whatever the topic is.

Well it turns out that every single one of them is just copying John McPhee, who is so much better at the genre than anyone else. It's unreal. These were just excerpts and I now want to read half the books they're from. He has a perfect eye for scenery and ear for dialogue, so each vignette captures exactly what he wants it to in a couple of paragraphs. Wow.

Another wonderful John McPhee book that elucidates the geology and illuminates some human experience on that terrain. McPhee didn't mention the ecological disaster that is Farson WY, but he did hit many other problems and situations.

One of McPhee's strengths is his ability to lucidly describe and summarize complex scientific theories. He makes you think you, even you, might be able to understand a little geology. A great book in his series which should be read by anyone who will travel the I80 corridor or been to Lander, Rawlings, etc.

Most readers have a favorite author, and mine is probably John McPhee. A writer of non-fiction, he takes delight in exploring unconventional aspects of our society, presented through colorful individuals and described in crisp and scintillating language.

This book is a sampler, containing excerpts from a dozen books, an admirable introduction for anyone new to McPhee's style. Collections like this are often disjointed and fragmentary, but not here: each section stands on its own, each is a minor masterpiece, each tells a story, and the editor's introductory analysis of McPhee's style is masterful in its own way. First published in 1976, it is still in print, like other books by McPhee. He wrote many more after that--about Alaska, about the geology of the western US (three books, a bit heavy with geology jargon), about an ocean trip with the US merchant marine, also stories about bears in New Jersey, about attempts to contain the mighty Mississippi and lava flows on Iceland, and so forth, up to his recent "Ransom of Russian Art," his twenty-third.

As the above list shows, McPhee's interests are rather wide-ranging. The books excerpted here touch on canoeing in Maine, on travels through the sparsely populated (yes!) center of New Jersey, and on dreamers or visionaries (pick your choice) who plan trips to the stars by controlled atomic explosions, and others who fly a craft that is a hybrid between an airplane and an airship.

All these sparkle with apt metaphors ("Generally speaking, if I had a choice between hiking and peeling potatoes, I would peel the potatoes"). And the descriptions are intimate and personal: all are based on first-hand experiences by McPhee, as he follows his subjects wherever they take him. I ought to admit here that his point of view is somewhat masculine, but there is more than enough in his writings to attract any reader.

He also has the gift of digging up unusual stories--e.g. in "Oranges" he tells practically all you might want about Florida's sunshine product. You not only learn the ins and outs of "Indian River oranges" (it's a lagoon, not a river), but also how Ossian B. Hart, later governor of the state, played his violin to an audience of alligators.

And he uncovers interesting characters, sometimes precociously so. McPhee's first book was an admiring portrayal of a talented basketball player he got to know during college years: Bill Bradley later became US senator from New Jersey and a serious contender for the US presidential nomination. Four years later he wrote an equally admiring book about a nearly unknown young Black tennis player from Richmond, Virginia, Arthur Ashe. And in "Travels in Georgia", a wilderness adventure, he describes his meeting with "Governor Jimmy Carter". All these are included here, as is an encounter between David Brouwer, head of the Sierra Club, and an opponent of Brouwer, a prominent pro-development westerner. Both were invited by McPhee to share a rafting trip down the Grand Canyon. And much, much more.

In each generation, only a handful of books endure and become part of the literary heritage handed down from generation to generation. It is too early to tell, but McPhee's writings may well end up in this class. A century hence, if anyone would like to understand the peculiar creativity that made twentieth century America the great country it is, he might well find the clearest answer in McPhee's true-to-life explorations.

If you like John McPhee, or you've been told you should, this is a nice sample of his work. Since his books are so deeply about something, you'll get a sense of which topics might interest you by browsing/reading this book. For instance, I'm not so interested in baseball. So, I won't read A Sense of Where You Are.

John McPhee is a renaissance man. Basketball, tennis, oranges, hydrogen bombs, bark canoes, dams, wingless flying vehicle, medieval relics and the people playing, growing, inventing, flying, building, studying and opposing them are his subject matter. He writes with depth, flair and humor. And the reader comes away with amazing understanding of his subjects.

This is a collection of excerpts from McPhee's first 12 books, edited and introduced by William Howarth. The collection was published in 1976. Bill Bradley went on to be US Senator and I suspect the orange industry in Florida has changed. So far we haven't tried space flight powered by hydrogen bombs. The story of McPhee visiting the World Trade Center in the early 70's with a physicist, who explains how the building could be brought down by a small, easily-assembled nuclear bomb was horrifyingly eerie.

I had to trudge through some of these and others were amazing.

Excellent "greatest hits" collection from the master of creative nonfiction.