Book Log 2007 #12: Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee
In this collection, McPhee turns his eye towards transportation, following an independent long-haul trucker, crews from freight trains and barges, and even himself as he makes a canoe journey in the oar strokes of Thoreau.
The essays are full of his usual beautiful prose, but I never quite felt connected with his subjects as in some of the older books - even when he was his own subject. I'm not sure where the problem lies; in one way I found the people in the books fairly similar in their oddball character, so perhaps there was a repetitive aspect that was turning me off. I'm also not sure if the essays brought about the same sort of revelations that the books on more offbeat subject did.
If you're a fan, you'll probably get something out of this, hopefully more than I did. For a first-timer, though, this may not be the place to start.
20 April 2007
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