John McPhee is one of my favorite New Yorker writers. This book is a collection of articles whose common theme is the magnitude of the transportation systems that criss-cross America. He hangs out with a long-haul trucker, visits UPS's main hub (through which everything produced by Americans seems to flow), retraces a river journey made by Thoreau, rides a coal train from Wyoming to Georgia, and floats down the Mississippi on a barge. The book is quite intimate, as McPhee focuses on the ordinanry folks who guide these systems; but their sheer scale and scope is ever present, and eventually one is left awe-struck that it works at all.

Uncommon topic, transportation and logistics. And McPhee does a mighty fine job, exploring the language, the lives and the mechanics of logistics. Fluent writing that effortlessly conveys his thoughts with efficiency.

Uncommon Carriers is a bit of an odd book to reviews. Made up of a series of vignettes, there isn't so much an overarching thesis or argument to summarize. Rather, it's a set of unvarnished portraits of people in roles we often overlook: driving eighteen wheelers, learning to command ships, running coal trains up and down the tracks, and so on.

I liked the book for two reasons. First, McPhee is really excellent at humanizing those who he encounters. We're presented with a series of characters working in each industry who are never mocked, but are also never presented as perfect or polished. McPhee is careful never to look down upon these workers, instead revealing the complexity and importance of the work they do. We leave each chapter with a greater appreciation of all that goes into running a barge up and down a river, and never once feeling like those who do it are 'less than.' At the same time, though, McPhee never dresses up the characters to improve their appearances either: they're presented with faults and messiness, with inaccurate views and odd habits. In other words, McPhee is exceptional at capturing the nuance, complexity, and humanity of those with whom he interacts.

The second thing I enjoy is the length. I found the last McPhee book (Coming Into The Country) I read to be a little on the long, plodding side. By contrast, though, this McPhee is really delightfully paced: we're given rich stories about each sector and character without it dragging on or losing interest. Indeed, it's a relatively quick, engaging, and interesting book - easily read in a couple of days.

In other words, it's McPhee worth reading by all. Come for the curious professions and stay for the vivid, warm, and honest portrayal of characters you meet along the way.

I was a little reluctant at first to start this book, thinking to myself "how interesting can a book about train engineers, truck drives, and barge pilots be?"  But that is precisely McPhee's talent--being able to write interesting, insightful stories about ordinary things we see, and virtually ignore, every day.

The book is a compilation of essays McPhee wrote about his experience riding in an eighteen wheeler, a train, a river barge, and his own canoe (and his experience at the UPS sorting facility).  In each essay, McPhee shares very interesting insights from those who perform the jobs that our economy so heavily depends upon.  He does an excellent job of sharing the knowledge he learned from each experience while intertwining interesting stories from the people he encounters.  The net result is an excellent book that will be both educational and very entertaining.

Upon finishing this book, I realized how insulated we are from the mechanisms that deliver us the things we depend on to live.  We use tons of products each day, yet have very little idea of how they got to us.  In a very interesting way, this book offers a glimpse into the lives of those who carry the products that keep our economy churning.

I agree with some previous criticism that the chapter about his canoe trip on the Merrimack River, while interesting, is a little out of place.  That chapter is more of a book review of Thoreau's work, but it does tie into the theme of "carriers" by discussing how these Eastern rivers were such important trade routes in the 1800s.

A with all McPhee's books, a great read

The author describes different forms of transportation from the experiences of the driver of an 18-wheeler, a river boat pilot going up and down narrow rivers, a ship captain training on a pond in the Swiss Alps, and an engineer of a coal train. He goes into great detail which makes it feel like you are there.

He does kind of go off the track, though, when he attempts to re-create the canoe trip of John and Henry Thoreau by making his own trip. That chapter was 38 pages long (about 15% of the book) and was like watching home movies of a friend's last vacation trip. Unless you are interested in Thoreau's journey up a river, or are an avid canoeist, I'd skip that chapter. The rest of the book makes up for it, though.

After reading his "Looking for a Ship" I enjoyed his personal style of writing, and loaded this book into my Kindle.  As someone in the transportation industry I travel a lot and can not carry too many books, but don't like kindles because they do not reproduce photos or charts and graphs well.  However this book did not need many of these, and it was informative on the ways, means, and methods of travel we do not often think about.  His storys give details into the lives of the people who keep our stuff moving around the country.
The only part that seemed out of place was the canoe trip up the river from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, since the canal is no longer used, he could have covered the Erie Canal instead.  Anyway it was fun to read.

McPhee is one of the very few authors that, over time, has been so consistently fascinating that I now buy anything by him.  It all started years ago when I first read "Coming Into The Country."  Then continued with his excellent books on geology ("Annals of a Former World," "Basin and Range") and on and on.  "Uncommon Carriers" is a collection of essays that amply demonstrates what I feel is McPhee's greatest skill; his ability to take on a wide range of subjects that, on the surface, might seem to be not very interesting.  Once he has a topic, He digs into the people, history and backstory, then waves his magic wand, and "POOF"  transforms seemingly mundane subjects into fascinating essays that satisfy a wide variety of readers, and he consistently does this over and over again.  Of course it helps that his magic wand is a mash-up of insatiable curiosity and a deep respect for his craft.

Not his most engaging book compared to Coming Into the Country but still contains some gems.

Easy to read, good storyteller, makes great points about work and its broader social and emotional meaning. Gives the reader a lot to think about. The bait is that you get to see behind the scenes of an industry you probably don't think about very often. But that's just to get you to read the lesson that there is value and pride in work done well. If you work with your body as much as your brain you'll enjoy the validation that there is worth (and reward) in doing anything to the best of your ability. If you liked "Shop Class as Soulcraft" give this a try.

A friend suggested this book to me after we were talking about CSX and the train lines running through Baltimore. I enjoyed all of the sections of the book that I read. I felt like it was something of an inside view of the transportation world. I kind of got the same feeling out of reading this that I get out of listening to This American Life, though without a real story behind it. I enjoyed how the author made what may even be mundane into something interesting. Obviously, I have no way to confirm, but I felt he not only captured the essence of the characters, but also the environment.

I did skip the whole section on kayaking (or was it canoeing?). I just had no interest. I would have liked it if he could have included more of the background detail on the train segment. I want to know more about how the system works and how things fit together. Furthermore, it would have been nice to have additional modes of transportation discussed. There was no glaring reason for only giving 4 stars other than an overall opinion and feeling.