Books : Uncommon Carriers

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Author name: John McPhee

: Uncommon Carriers
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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 388
EAN num: 9780865477391
ISBN number: 0865477396
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 256
Printing Date: April 03, 2007
Publishing house: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: April 03, 2007
Sale Popularity Level: 42230
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux



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Editor's Notes and Comments:

Product Description:
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.




Customer Reviews
User popularity level: out of 5 stars

Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - Extraordinary book about ordinary jobs
I was a little reluctant at very first to start this book, thinking to myself "how interesting can a book about train engineers, truck drives, and barge pilots be?" But that is precisely McPhee's talent--being able to write interesting, insightful stories about ordinary things we see, and virtually ignore, every day.

The book is a compilation of essays McPhee wrote about his experience riding in an eighteen wheeler, a train, a river barge, and his own canoe (and his experience at the UPS sorting facility). In each essay, McPhee shares very interesting insights from those who perform the jobs that our economy so heavily depends upon. He does an excellent job of sharing the knowledge he learned from each experience while intertwining interesting stories from the people he encounters. The net result is an excellent book that will be both educational and very entertaining.

Upon finishing this book, I realized how insulated we are from the mechanisms that deliver us the things we depend on to live. We use tons of products each day, yet have very little idea of how they got to us. In a very interesting way, this book offers a glimpse into the lives of those who carry the products that keep our economy churning.

I agree with some previous criticism that the chapter about his canoe trip on the Merrimack River, while interesting, is a little out of place. That chapter is more of a book review of Thoreau's work, but it does tie into the theme of "carriers" by discussing how these Eastern rivers were such important trade routes in the 1800s.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - Uncommon Carriers -- uncommonly good
Uncommon Carriers -- a book by John McPhee. Like all of McPhee's books, this one provides fascinating insights into a world we all take for granted. The author brings the subject to life and puts a human face on processes we tend to think of as mechanical. You will never look at a truck on the highway, a freighter coming into port, a UPS plane, or a freight train in the same way after you've read this book.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - Transporters
The eclectic and readable McPhee strikes again in this engaging study of people engaged in unconventional forms of transportation. But the coverage of trucks, ships, and trains brings out what is truly great about McPhee - his ability to ruminate on other tangential matters, including little-known facts about the world's transportation systems and the real non-stereotypical people who operate them. This rambling and eclectic style is actually one of McPhee's most underappreciated strengths, as the reader barely notices how one chapter morphs from a down-home look at a Nova Scotia lobster farm to a scientific examination of the enormous UPS complex in Louisville. In one chapter McPhee also replicates a canoe trip once taken by Thoreau, and in the process also replicates Thoreau's penchant for literary flights of fancy while ruminating on transportation systems of long-gone eras. This book isn't quite as substantial or socially observant as some of McPhee's classics, but as usual he has delivered a very readable look at parts of the world that you know are there but haven't much thought about - and all with his dependable humor, literacy, and insight. [~doomsdayer520~]


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - McPhee Delivers
Uncommon Carriers proves again that John McPhee is the modern master of the discursive essay.

Conversations with Don Ainsworth and his chemical tanker truck bookend a series of essays on the transportation trade. "Ainsworth's middle names could be 'Free Association'" writes McPhee of this kindred spirit. In addition to the tanker trade, the book reports McPhee's experiences and meditations on rail, freighter, barge, and air freight.

At the center of the volume is McPhee's affectionate re-creation of Thoreau's "Five Days on the Merrimack and Concord Rivers" - a journey into the headwaters of McPhee's literary style.


Rated by buyers 5 out of 5 stars - Commonly, and Exceptionally - McPhee
I've read (and own hardcovers of) every book John McPhee has written. Many of the essay/compliation books - like this one - were very first largely included in The New Yorker, but I'll always rush out and buy any new McPhee when it hits the bookstores. As a trained and licensed deep-sea Merchant Mariner, several of the ship-driving stories in this book were particularly interesting to me, but I got as much pleasure learning about long-haul trucking, coal trains, and UPS' hub (and shipping lobsters). McPhee's insight and depth can't be beat. What's next, John? Whatever it is, I'm sure I'll buy it and love it!

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