Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee

(read aloud)

McPhee has multitudes of devoted followers so I am somewhat late to the party. In this book he deals with trucks, trains, and barges. These commonplace things he takes and shows how much more is going on than meets the eye. With a profound sense of people, places, and history, he writes of technology in use. These people have a level of experience and competence that is amazing and yet he has come to know them, their families, their hobbies, their roots.

We know these things changed America but he shows how; from Henry David Thoreau canoeing the first waterway to UPS planes landing every two minutes, we have been changed in a myriad of ways.

This is a series of stories but tied together. McPhee has a unique voice. He is describing and explaining; he seems to refrain from making judgments. These are real people working hard, doing honest work.