he is always interesting to read. several very different stories here.

‘The Keel of Lake Dickey’ about the upper St. John River (Baker Lake to the Allagash) was a real highlight.

Best were the title and final articles, NY farmer's markets and a country restaurant chef. Canoeing article also good - typical McPhee, which is always worth reading.

It was the first description of the open air farmers market movement that I had read and now that I spend my life in them and thinking about them, I realize now that McPhee described it so perfectly and with enough detail so that it could STILL be used as an introduction to any market across the US.

I loved the food essay the best - at 80 pages, it's more like a novella - and includes some mystery, gorgeous detail, character study, and the intricacies of urchin roe preparation.

A collection of essays from one of America's most talented essayists. Giving Good Weight was a gorgeous essay on te farmers markets in NYC, the Atlantic Generating Station on the brilliant plan that never came to pass to build a floating nuclear power plant off the coast of NJ (just what that state needs), the Pinball Philosophy on the competitive world of pinball players, The Keel of Lake Dickey on the joys of canoeing and Brigade de Cuisine (the reason why I bought the book) on a talented chef who wants to remain anonymous (alas!).

It was a mixed bag.

As with many McPhee's, this was a collection of shorter writings.

We've got McPhee working on farms and at farmer's market's around NYC - entertaining; we've got New Jersey thinking about building floating nuclear power stations - quite fascinating; we've got a story about pinball -which, honestly, was what I was most looking forward to, but turned out to be utterly forgettable; we've got, yet another, story about McPhee canoeing (and I already have a thing about canoing), so I was dreading this one, but it was the most enjoyable canoe writing yet; and we end with an obscure restaurant near NYC - it sounds like a French haute cuisine version of Shopsin's - which makes you want to pack up and leave tonight, and eat there for every meal tomorrow - until you realize the book was written in 1975, and there is no restaurant to go to :(

Overall, hooray for McPhee - but it isn't one I would start people with, but I'm considering colored flagging some of the stories to loan out.

The difference in sophistication between the two later essays (Giving Good Weight and Brigade de Cuisine) and the other three is pretty dramatic. That said, in all of the essays McPhee manages to take subjects that most of us wouldn't even give second thought to and turn them into riveting stories.

Giving Good Weight by John McPhee

This collection is composed of four non-fiction stories that are about fifty pages each. There is also a ten page story called Pinball Philosophy that’s not really long enough to evaluate.

1. Giving Good Weight - this is the title essay. It is largely about working at the farmers market on Manhattan’s east side. McPhee had to weigh a lot of vegetables for customers. And one customer was surprised that McPhee wasn’t trying to rip her off saying you give good weight. McPhee also gets to visit some of the source farms - an egg farm and an onion farm. I had no idea how dense these chicken farms are. One of the most insightful stories about New York City that I’ve ever read. Just brilliant. 5 stars.

2. The Atlantic Generating Station. In the early 1970’s a plan is laid out by the New Jersey Public Works to build a floating nuclear power plant in the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast! The projected cost is $375 million. We learn that in the past on a few occasions when coastal cities were stricken with long term power outages, ships were used as electrical power generators so getting the conduits to shore would be no problem. But they would have to build a breakwater around the plant. They also used a ship in the Panama Canal to help power the locks when the water levels were low during the summer and not enough electricity was produced. As far as the feasibility studies, we know that the ocean is “the world’s best heat sink”. We also learn that New Jersey has had four recorded earthquakes in the past two centuries but this is a floating plant so it would be a tsunami that might be more of a problem. In its recorded history the largest tsunami to hit the New Jersey coast was less than a foot high. So no problems there after all. But alas by the late 70’s - perhaps unsurprisingly - the proposed project is scrapped due to inflation and other cost projections. 5 stars.

3. In the Keel of Lake Dickey we follow a group of canoeists in four canoes as they paddle down a hundred mile section of the lengthy St. John river in Maine. This river as it reaches the ocean even reverses flow. Samuel de Champlain discovered the river in 1604 some sixteen years prior to the Mayflower’s arrival. We learn other random facts like fiddleheads - the tips of ferns - can be quite tasty. We learn about the paddling techniques in anticipation of the dangerous Big Rapids some one hundred miles down river. A canoe capsizes but the men are rescued and the trip abruptly ends a few hours later at Dickey. Dickey was a proposed dam site that was scrapped based on environmentalist protests and cost run ups. There are however three other dams located on the 418 mile long river. 4 stars.

4. The last book is Brigade de Cuisine. The author gets to know some Latvian chefs in New York City and explores their lives and their story of fleeing the Nazi’s when they were children. 3 stars.

4.5 stars overall. Very few authors can write non-fiction as consistently well as John McPhee.

Clear and pure, an offhand-sounding voice which conveys a keen attention. The description of farmer's markets in various neighborhoods of NY seems both dated and timeless, a snapshot of a particular era in NY and the long view of how human nature persists across eras and zipcodes.

One of McPhee's best anthologies of essays — an eclectic collection unified by the adventure and exploration of each piece.

Utterly remarkable