Synopses & Reviews
A long-awaited new book by the nonfiction master, winner of the Pulitzer PrizeFew fish are as beloved-or as obsessed over-as the American shad. Although shad spend most of their lives in salt water, they enter rivers by the hundreds of thousands in the spring and swim upstream heroic distances in order to spawn, then return to the ocean.
John McPhee is a shad fisherman, and his passion for the annual shad run has led him, over the years, to learn much of what there is to know about the fish known as Alosa sapidissima, or "most savory." In The Founding Fish McPhee makes of his obsession a work of literary art. In characteristically bold and spirited prose-inflected, here and there, with wry humor-McPhee places the fish within natural history and American history. He explores the fish's cameo role in the lives of William Penn, Washington, Jefferson, Thoreau, Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth. He travels with various ichthyologists, including a fish behaviorist and an anatomist of fishes; takes instruction in the making of shad darts from a master of the art; and cooks shad and shad roe a variety of ways (delectably explained at the end of the book). Mostly, though, McPhee goes fishing for shad-standing for hours in the Delaware River in stocking waders and cleated boots, or gently bumping over rapids in a chocolate-colored Kevlar canoe. His adventures in the pursuit of shad occasion the kind of writing, at once expert and ardent, in which he has no equal.
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.
The Founding Fish, John McPhee's twenty-sixth book, is a braid of personal history, natural history, and American history, in descending order of volume. McPhee is a shad fisherman. He waits all year for the short spring season when delicious American shadAlosa sapidissimaleave the ocean in hundreds of thousand sand run up rivers heroic distances to spawn. He approaches them with a catch-and-eat philosophy. After all, their specific name means "most savory."
McPhee presents his obsession in bold and spirited prose. His research illuminates the sometimes surprising relevance of this fish in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America, and its unique appeal to imaginative historians. George Washington was a commercial shad fishermanin 1771 he caught 7,760 American shad. The fish had a cameo in the lives of Henry David Thoreau and John Wilkes Booth. Planked shad (shad nailed to a board and broiled before an open fire) was invented by the Colony in Schuylkill, a Philadelphia fishing club founded in 1732, which now considers itself the fourteenth of the fifty-one united states.
McPhee fishes with and visits the laboratories of various ichthyologists, including a fish behaviorist and an anatomist of fishes, he takes instruction in the making of shad darts from a master of the art; and he cooks shad and shad roe in a variety of ways, delectably explained at the end of the book. Mostly, though, he goes fishing for shad in various North American riversin Florida, in Maritime Canada, but especially in the Delaware River, nearest his home, where he stands for hours in stocking waders and cleated boots, or seeks pools below riffles and rapids in a canoe. His adventures in pursuit of shad occasion the kind of writingexpert and ardentat which he has no equal.
"The Founding Fish is . . . far more than a fishing book. It is a mini-encyclopedia, a highly informative and entertaining amalgam of natural and personal history, a work in a class by itself."Robert H. Boyle, The New York Times Book Review
"The Founding Fish is . . . far more than a fishing book. It is a mini-encyclopedia, a highly informative and entertaining amalgam of natural and personal history, a work in a class by itself."Robert H. Boyle, The New York Times Book Review
"Under McPhee's close eye, everything about this fish is fascinating."William Moody, The Christian Science Monitor
"There are many descriptions one might give to the writing of Pulitzer Prize winner McPheeentertaining, wry, surprising, inventivebut the quality most prominently on display in his newest work is uncompromising thoroughness. The book recounts the complete history of the delicious fish known as the shadnot just of hunting, cleaning and eating the fish, but of the famous men who caught it (William Penn, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln among them), the writers who penned heartfelt tributes to it, the biologists and ichthyologists who try to uncover its secrets and the animal activists who fight on its behalf. It is likely that no one will ever write another book quite like this one, a book that manages to relate every possible snippet of shad lore while at the same time offering up humorous tales of the author's own fishing expeditions. The book will no doubt emerge as a must-read for those already enamored of shad. For the rest of us, it serves as an example of nonfiction writing at its finestintimate and suggestive, authoritative and convincing."Beth Kephart, Book magazine
"McPhee reaffirms his stature as a bold American original. His prose is rugged, straightforward and unassuming, and can be just as witty. This book sings like anglers' lines cast on the water. It runs with the wisdom of ocean-going shad."Publishers Weekly
"McPhee is in great form here, as informative as always but also funny, unusually self-revealing, and quite passionate in his discussions of the dire effects dams have had on shad and rivers alike, and the troubling realization that catch-and-release fishing 'may be cruelty masquerading as political correctness.'"Booklist
"Suitably, and lucky for readers, there isn't a day patch in this story of a fish and its homewaters. It's owlish, reflective, full of sustaining information you had no idea you wanted to know, but also warm and full of McPhee, a shad fisherman, with rod and dart and fly, of long standing . . . Readers tending toward hard science will be pleased with the clear-minded icthyological material, while those whose slant is more in the direction of humanities will graze enjoyable on the historical and anecdotal parts."Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Among the few significant poets of our half-century." (Tim Kendall, The Guardian)
Review
"One of our century's funniest, most moving, and idiosyncratic poets." (Forrest Gander, The Providence Sunday Journal)
Review
"McPhee reaffirms his stature as a bold American original. His prose is rugged, straightforward and unassuming, and can be just as witty. This book sings like anglers' lines cast on the water. It runs with the wisdom of ocean-going shad."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
"The
Founding Fish is . . . far more than a fishing book. It is a mini-encyclopedia, a highly informative and entertaining amalgam of natural and personal history, a work in a class by itself." --Robert H. Boyle,
The New York Times Book Review"A blue-chip tour of the American shad." --Kirkus Reviews
"Under McPhee's close eye, everything about this fish is fascinating." --William Moody, The Christian Science Monitor
"A fishing classic" --The Economist
Synopsis
A long-awaited new book by the nonfiction master, winner of the Pulitzer PrizeFew fish are as beloved-or as obsessed over-as the American shad. Although shad spend most of their lives in salt water, they enter rivers by the hundreds of thousands in the spring and swim upstream heroic distances in order to spawn, then return to the ocean.
John McPhee is a shad fisherman, and his passion for the annual shad run has led him, over the years, to learn much of what there is to know about the fish known as Alosa sapidissima, or "most savory." In The Founding Fish McPhee makes of his obsession a work of literary art. In characteristically bold and spirited prose-inflected, here and there, with wry humor-McPhee places the fish within natural history and American history. He explores the fish's cameo role in the lives of William Penn, Washington, Jefferson, Thoreau, Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth. He travels with various ichthyologists, including a fish behaviorist and an anatomist of fishes; takes instruction in the making of shad darts from a master of the art; and cooks shad and shad roe a variety of ways (delectably explained at the end of the book). Mostly, though, McPhee goes fishing for shad-standing for hours in the Delaware River in stocking waders and cleated boots, or gently bumping over rapids in a chocolate-colored Kevlar canoe. His adventures in the pursuit of shad occasion the kind of writing, at once expert and ardent, in which he has no equal.
Synopsis
John McPhee's twenty-sixth book is a braid of personal history, natural history, and American history, in descending order of volume. Each spring, American shad-Alosa sapidissima-leave the ocean in hundreds of thousands and run heroic distances upriver to spawn.
McPhee--a shad fisherman himself--recounts the shad's cameo role in the lives of George Washington and Henry David Thoreau. He fishes with and visits the laboratories of famous ichthyologists; he takes instruction in the making of shad darts from a master of the art; and he cooks shad in a variety of ways, delectably explained at the end of the book. Mostly, though, he goes fishing for shad in various North American rivers, and he "fishes the same way he writes books, avidly and intensely. He wants to know everything about the fish he's after--its history, its habits, its place in the cosmos" (Bill Pride, The Denver Post). His adventures in pursuit of shad occasion the kind of writing--expert and ardent--at which he has no equal.
Synopsis
Of all the rattlesnakes in the Western Hemisphere, the timber rattlesnake has evoked the widest, most controversial constituency. The first venomous snake encountered by European colonists, it was the first New World snake classified by Linnaeus, who gave it the Latinized name Crotalus horridus, which translates to and#147;scaly beast with musical rattle.and#8221; Benjamin Franklin was enamored by the timber rattlesnake. The timber rattlesnake is also the most thoroughly studied rattlesnake by amateur and professional herpetologists. E. O. Wilson has suggested that we fear them innately, but there is a population for whom these scaly predators charm better than any snake handler can attempt to do. These characters coil in the pages of Ted Levin's America's Snake, where the narrative slithers through the fascinating world of snake research and quackery, including everything from rattlesnakesand#8217; unique reproductive behaviors to its relatively recent evolutionary history. We also come face to face with hucksters, such as the "Cobra King," who in his lifetime collected 9000 of the snakes for illegal trade, and who sold maps to Timber dens for $50, and guided tours for $5000. In Americaand#8217;s Snake, the rise and fall of the timber rattlesnake is examined, scale by scale.
Synopsis
Thereandrsquo;s no sound quite like it, or as viscerally terrifying: the ominous rattle of the timber rattlesnake. Itandrsquo;s a chilling shorthand for imminent danger, and a reminder of the countless ways that nature can suddenly snuff us out.
and#160;
Yet most of us have never seen a timber rattler. Though theyandrsquo;re found in thirty-one states, and near many major cities, in contemporary America timber rattlesnakes are creatures mostly of imagination and innate fear.
and#160;
Ted Levin aims to change that with Americaandrsquo;s Snake, a portrait of the timber rattlesnake, its place in Americaandrsquo;s pantheon of creatures and in our own frontier historyandmdash;and of the heroic efforts to protect it against habitat loss, climate change, and the human tendency to kill what we fear. Taking us from labs where the secrets of the snakeandrsquo;s evolutionary history are being unlocked to far-flung habitats whose locations are fiercely protected by biologists and dedicated amateur herpetologists alike, Levin paints a picture of a fascinating creature: peaceable, social, long-lived, and, despite our phobias, not inclined to bite. The timber rattler emerges here as emblematic of America and also, unfortunately, of the complicated, painful struggles involved in protecting and preserving the natural world.
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A wonderful mix of natural history, travel writing, and exemplary journalism, Americaandrsquo;s Snake is loaded with remarkable charactersandmdash;none more so than the snake at its heart: frightening, perhaps; endangered, certainly; and unquestionably unforgettable.
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),
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.