Synopses & Reviews
This acclaimed collection of essays begins with the title essay and a trip to Nevada, where, in the company of a brand inspector, John McPhee discovers that cattle rustling is not just history.
John McPhee is the author of more than 25 books, including Annals of the Former World, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction in 1999. He has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1965 and lives in Princeton, New Jersey. McPhee's Encounters with the Archdruid and The Curve of Binding Energy were both nominated for National Book Awards in the category of science.
Irons in the Fire begins with the title essay and a trip to Nevada, where, in the company of a brand inspector, John McPhee discovers that cattle rustling is not just history. People, places, and events as unlikely as a virgin forest in central New Jersey, a blind writer-professor working at his computer, an auction of exotic cars, a forensic geologist on a murder case, a mountain of forty-four million scrap tires in California, and a repair day for Plymouth Rock shape the scenes and substance of the other essays. From first to last, McPhee is at the top of his form, his writing "full of ideas in force, of attempts at progress, of a world endlessly flexed with promise" (Peter Stack, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review).
"McPhee is known as the dean of 'literary journalists' . . . His writing creates its own wonderful topographical map of the ways of the world, contemplated with both microcosmic closeness and cosmic breadth."Kate Shatzkin, The Baltimore Sun
"Somehow McPhee finds, again and again, the kind of people we're told don't exist anymore: unsung heroes . . . living lives of absolute mastery of their varied fields. A master himself, McPhee writes about them with grace. This is a close to poetry as journalism gets."Andrea Gollin, Miami Herald
"McPhee's essays are proof that the kind of journalism that can effortlessly put a topic into perfect perspective will never go out of style."Robert R. Harris, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"McPhee is known as the dean of 'literary journalists' . . . His writing creates its own wonderful topographical map of the ways of the world, contemplated with both microcosmic closeness and cosmic breadth."—Kate Shatzkin,
The Baltimore Sun"Somehow McPhee finds, again and again, the kind of people we're told don't exist anymore: unsung heroes . . . living lives of absolute mastery of their varied fields. A master himself, McPhee writes about them with grace. This is a close to poetry as journalism gets."—Andrea Gollin, Miami Herald
"McPhee's essays are proof that the kind of journalism that can effortlessly put a topic into perfect perspective will never go out of style."—Robert R. Harris, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
This acclaimed collection of essays by our "dean of Literary journalists" (Baltimore Sun) begins with the title essay and a trip to Nevada, where, in the company of a brand inspector. John McPhee discovers that cattle rustling is not just history. People, places, and events as unlikely as a virgin forest in central New Jersey, a blind writer-professor and his computer, an auction of exotic cars, a forensic geologist on a murder case, a mountain of forty-four million scrap tires, and a repair day for Plymouth Rock shade the scenes and substance of the other essays. McPhee is at the top of his form, his writing full of ideas in force, of attempts at progress, of a world endlessly flexed with promise" (San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle Book Review).
Synopsis
This acclaimed collection of essays begins with the title essay and a trip to Nevada, where, in the company of a brand inspector, John McPhee discovers that cattle rustling is not just history.
About the Author
John McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and was educated at Princeton University and Cambridge University. His writing career began at
Time magazine and led to his long association with
The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1965. Also in 1965, he published his first book,
A Sense of Where You Are, with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and in the years since, he has written nearly 30 books, including
Oranges (1967),
Coming into the Country (1977),
The Control of Nature (1989),
The Founding Fish (2002),
Uncommon Carriers (2007), and
Silk Parachute (2011).
Encounters with the Archdruid (1972) and
The Curve of Binding Energy (1974) were nominated for National Book Awards in the category of science. McPhee received the Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 1977. In 1999, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for
Annals of the Former World. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.