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Original Essays | November 5, 2009

John Buntin: IMG Notes from the (Bibliographic) Underground

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Uncommon Carriers

by John McPhee

Uncommon Carriers Cover

ISBN13: 9780865477391
ISBN10: 0865477396
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

This is a book about people who drive trucks, captain ships, pilot towboats, drive coal trains, and carry lobsters through the air: people who work in freight transportation. John McPhee rides from Atlanta to Tacoma alongside Don Ainsworth, owner and operator of a sixty-five-foot, five-axle, eighteen-wheel chemical tanker carrying hazmats—in Ainsworth’s opinion “the world’s most beautiful truck,” so highly polished you could part your hair while looking at it. He goes “out in the sort” among the machines that process a million packages a day at UPS Air’s distribution hub at Louisville International Airport. And (among other trips) he travels up the “tight-assed” Illinois River on a towboat pushing a triple string of barges, the overall vessel being “a good deal longer than the Titanic,” longer even than the Queen Mary 2.

Uncommon Carriers is classic work by McPhee, in prose distinguished, as always, by its author’s warm humor, keen insight, and rich sense of human character.

Synopsis:

McPhee, in prose distinguished by its warm humor, keen insight, and rich sense of human character, looks at the people who drive trucks, captain ships, pilot towboats, drive coal trains, and carry lobsters through the air: people who work in freight transportation.
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About the Author

John McPhee is a staff writer at The New Yorker. He is the author of twenty- nine books, all published by FSG. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
Richard Cox, October 4, 2008 (view all comments by Richard Cox)
An enjoyable book, if you are interested in reading about the lives of some of the people who "move the goods". You'll spend time with a long-haul trucker, a towboat crew, a train crew, and a ship's captain, among others. Well-written.
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Thomas Kirby, May 12, 2007 (view all comments by Thomas Kirby)
This book is sort of a travelogue of places no tourist ever considers for their vacation, travelling by means also not in consideration by the average tourist. Reading this book, you will learn about what a truck driver, barge captain, freighter captain, or train engineer needs to learn and put up with. The book is a pleasant read, with gentle humor througout, with minimal sex and no violence. It got me through my subway commute.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780865477391
Author:
McPhee, John
Publisher:
Farrar Straus Giroux
Subject:
General
Subject:
Essays
Subject:
General Transportation
Subject:
Transportation
Subject:
Freight and freightage
Publication Date:
April 2007
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
248
Dimensions:
8.26x5.56x.69 in. .65 lbs.
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