Uncommon Carriers

It might be impossible to make long-haul trucking, river towboats, or interstate coal trains sexy, but John McPhee succeeds in making them interesting. In this book about the transportation industry, he tells stories about fascinating, often overlooked people. Along the way, he seamlessly weaves in a wealth of factual, historical, and statistical information. It's so effortless that listeners won't realize how much they've learned until they turn off the book. McPhee writes in a lyrical style that makes grand landscapes and intimate scenes come to life. He uses humor and detailed descriptions to great effect. His reading has a storytelling style. But he pauses at awkward moments, and his breathing is clearly audible. R.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Starred review from April 17, 2006
McPhee's 28th book (after The Founding Fish
) is a grown-up version of every young boy's fantasy life, as the peripatetic writer gets to ride in the passenger seat in an 18-wheel truck, tag along on a barge ride up the Illinois River and climb into the cabin of a Union Pacific coal train that's over a mile long. He even gets to be the one-man crew on a 20-ton scale model of an ocean tanker in a French pond where ship pilots go for advanced training. As always, McPhee's eye for idiosyncratic detail keeps the stories (some of which have appeared in the New Yorker
and the Atlantic Monthly
) lively and frequently moves them in interesting directions. One chapter that starts out in a Nova Scotia lobster farm winds up in Louisville, Ky., where McPhee is quickly beguiled by the enormous UPS sorting facility. In a more intimate piece, he takes a canoe and retraces Thoreau's path along New England rivers, noting the modern urban sprawl as well as the wildlife. "There are two places in the world—home and everywhere else," the towboat captain tells McPhee, "and everywhere else is the same." But McPhee always uncovers the little differences that give every place its unique tale.