I've been reading the John McPhee Reader, which is a collection of excerpts from a variety of his works. He's a fascinating journalist, and I enjoyed reading his writing. It is very dense, though, and he uses technical jargon freely, without defining it (it's up to you to whether this is desirable).
I really enjoyed the excerpts from A Roomful of Hovings. Unfortunately, the NY Public Library doesn't have this book! Some of the other excerpts didn't grab me as much: in particular, I found the story about Monopoly from A Sense of Place fairly awkward in its structure.
4 comments:
Not sure what's in the Reader, but did you read his article about a long haul tank truck driver that ran in the New Yorker? Excellent. Coming Into the Country was also a good read, about Alaska.
I haven't read other books by McPhee yet. I have been trying to find A Roomful of Hovings, but not many stores have it.
I think I remember the Hoving profile in a book that also had articles on Bill Bradley and the president of Exeter. You might want to search to see if such a collection exists outside of my mind.
That collection is the Reader, ironically.
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