Author: John McPhee Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 9780865477391 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 260
Book Description
McPhee, in prose distinguished by its warm humor, keen insight, and rich sense of human character, looks at the people who drive trucks, captain ships, pilot towboats, drive coal trains, and carry lobsters through the air: people who work in freight transportation.
Author: Dwight Jon Zimmerman Publisher: Macmillan + ORM ISBN: 1429988916 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 323
Book Description
Uncommon Valor from Dwight Jon Zimmerman and John D. Gresham presents a fascinating look at six of our bravest soldiers and the highest military decoration awarded in this country. Since the Vietnam War ended in 1973, the Medal of Honor, our nation's highest award for valor, has been presented to only eight men for their actions "above and beyond the call of duty." Six of the eight were young men who had fought in the current war in Iraq, Afghanistan, or both. All of these medals were awarded posthumously, as all had made the choice to give their lives so that their comrades might live. Uncommon Valor answers the searing question of who these six young soldiers were, and dramatically details how they found themselves in life-or-death situations, and why they responded as they did. For the first time, this book also provides a comprehensive history of the Medal of Honor itself—one marred by controversies, scandals, and theft. Using an extraordinary range of sources, including interviews with family members and friends, teammates and superiors in the military, personal letters, blogs posted within hours of events, personal and official videos and newly declassified documents, Uncommon Valor is a compelling and important work that recounts incredible acts of heroism and lays bare the ultimate sacrifice of our bravest soldiers.
Author: Stephen B. Goddard Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 9780226300436 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 382
Book Description
From the glory days of the railroad to today's gridlocked, six-lane highway, Getting There dramatizes America's shift from rail to road transportation, how it has robbed Americans of the choice of travel options enjoyed by Europeans, and why it threatens the nation's economic future. Stephen B. Goddard reveals how government joined automakers and roadbuilders to nearly destroy the rails, and why the 21st century will witness high-tech remedies and a railroad resurgence.
Author: John McPhee Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN: 0374706344 Category : Nature Languages : en Pages : 370
Book Description
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.
Author: John McPhee Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN: 1429958111 Category : Transportation Languages : en Pages : 254
Book Description
This is an extraordinary tale of life on the high seas aboard one of the last American merchant ships, the S.S. Stella Lykes, on a forty-two-day journey from Charleston down the Pacific coast of South America. As the crew of the Stella Lykes makes their ocean voyage, they tell stories of other runs and other ships, tales of disaster, stupidity, greed, generosity, and courage.
Author: John McPhee Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN: 0374708479 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages : 226
Book Description
In this collection John McPhee once agains proves himself as a master observer of all arenas of life as well a powerful and important writer.
Author: John McPhee Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN: 0374708592 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 148
Book Description
In Greenville, New Hampshire, a small town in the southern part of the state, Henri Vaillancourt makes birch-bark canoes in the same manner and with the same tools that the Indians used. The Survival of the Bark Canoe is the story of this ancient craft and of a 150-mile trip through the Maine woods in those graceful survivors of a prehistoric technology. It is a book squarely in the tradition of one written by the first tourist in these woods, Henry David Thoreau, whose The Maine Woods recounts similar journeys in similar vessel. As McPhee describes the expedition he made with Vaillancourt, he also traces the evolution of the bark canoe, from its beginnings through the development of the huge canoes used by the fur traders of the Canadian North Woods, where the bark canoe played the key role in opening up the wilderness. He discusses as well the differing types of bark canoes, whose construction varied from tribe to tribe, according to custom and available materials. In a style as pure and as effortless as the waters of Maine and the glide of a canoe, John McPhee has written one of his most fascinating books, one in which his talents as a journalist are on brilliant display.
Author: Anne Skomorowsky Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231552289 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 118
Book Description
A tiny mutation on the X chromosome can shape a family’s history. Passed down from a “carrier” parent to a child, fragile X syndrome is the most common inherited cause of intellectual disability and autism. Beyond that—and a rarity among genetic disorders—some fragile X carriers not only transmit the mutation but also experience related conditions themselves. In such cases, carriers can have tremors, infertility, and psychiatric disorders that complicate raising children with fragile X syndrome—and all too often, they suffer in silence. The Carriers investigates this common but still little-known genetic condition and its life-altering consequences. Anne Skomorowsky reveals how this disorder afflicts families across generations, telling the stories of the mothers and grandparents of fragile X patients and considering how genes interact with family dynamics. She interweaves the personal narratives and family histories of the people affected by fragile X disorders with clear and accessible explanations of the science behind them. Skomorowsky unpacks the latest research on the fragile X mutation and explores the history of its discovery. She highlights the roles of women as carriers, caregivers, and researchers who have made astonishing scientific breakthroughs over the last three decades. The Carriers is an essential book for fragile X families, including those just learning they are carriers, and for all readers interested in the complexities of heredity, the ethical dilemmas of genetic medicine, and the relationship between genes and personality.
Author: John McPhee Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN: 0374708576 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages : 278
Book Description
"You people come into the market—the Greenmarket, in the open air under the down pouring sun—and you slit the tomatoes with your fingernails. With your thumbs, you excavate the cheese. You choose your stringbeans one at a time. You pulp the nectarines and rape the sweet corn. You are something wonderful, you are—people of the city—and we, who are almost without exception strangers here, are as absorbed with you as you seem to be with the numbers on our hanging scales." So opens the title piece in this collection of John McPhee's classic essays, grouped here with four others, including "Brigade de Cuisine," a profile of an artistic and extraordinary chef; "The Keel of Lake Dickey," in which a journey down the whitewater of a wild river ends in the shadow of a huge projected dam; a report on plans for the construction of nuclear power plants that would float in the ocean; and a pinball shoot-out between two prizewinning journalists.
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Author: John McPhee
Author: Ken W. Sayers
Author: Dwight Jon Zimmerman
Author: Stephen B. Goddard
Author: John McPhee
Author: John McPhee
Author: John McPhee
Author: John McPhee
Author: Anne Skomorowsky
Author: John McPhee