John McPhee has 7 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.8★ across 5 ratings. The most-rated is Coming into the Country.
Coming into the Country
Summary
Those who have traveled into America’s only remaining frontier rarely come back out the same. Only in Alaska can we come close to understanding what our forefathers must have felt upon their arrival in the New World. McPhee brings to this narrative the qualities that have distinguished him in the field of travel literature—tolerance, brisk, and entertaining prose, and a fascination with things most of us never bother to notice.
©1977 John McPhee (P)1990 Recorded Books, LLC
Uncommon Carriers
Summary
From Pulitzer Prize-winner John McPhee, author of The Founding Fish, comes the fascinating story of an often overlooked, yet vitally important part of America. This first-hand account of the transportation sector features evocative portraits of the men and women who deliver our consumer and industrial goods. McPhee begins his adventure riding with Don Ainsworth, owner and operator of an 18-wheeler hauling nearly 30 tons of highly toxic chemicals from North Carolina to Washington. He continues his journey on a towboat pushing over 1,000 feet of barge up the narrow channel of the Illinois River. He rounds out his account crawling through Nebraska, Kansas, and the Powder River Basin of Wyoming in massive coal trains. Along the way, he tells the stories of the people he meets and the places he visits. McPhee's sense of humor, incisive observations, and historical asides make for a highly entertaining journey across America.
©2006 John McPhee (P)2006 Recorded Books LLC
Assembling California
Summary
Thirty years ago, the theory that continents are comprised of drifting plates—plate tectonics—evoked more scorn than serious research. Today, this revolutionary theory continues to dazzle and challenge geologists and laymen alike. Assembling California explores an area uniquely demonstrative of the plate tectonic theory: California, which according to “tectonicists,” is breaking apart at its seams.
©1993 John McPhee (P)1993 Recorded Books, LLC
Irons in the Fire
Summary
Fabulously entertaining and filled with the intriguing trivia of life, Irons in the Fire is another impeccably crafted collection of seven essays by John McPhee. His peerless writing, punctuated with a sharp sense of humor and fascinating detail, has earned him legions of fans across the country. Whether he's riding with a cattle brand inspector in wild and wide-open eastern Nevada or following Plymouth Rock through its various sizes, shapes, and resting places, McPhee provides the listener with an intimate glimpse into ordinary people and the extraordinary interests that shape their lives. These delightful pieces, including "Irons in the Fire", "Travels of the Rock", "Release", "In Virgin Forest", "The Gravel Page", "Duty of Care", and "Rinard at Manheim", reveal the fascinating worlds hiding right under our noses. Narrator Nelson Runger's studied voice conveys McPhee's understated and thought-provoking writing. If you have never sampled McPhee's inspired prose, this audiobook will turn you into a lifelong fan.
©1997 John McPhee (P)1997 Recorded Books, LLC
The Founding Fish
Summary
Few fish are as beloved, or as obsessed over, as the American shad. Although shad spend most of their lives in salt water, they enter rivers by the hundreds of thousands in the spring and swim upstream heroic distances in order to spawn, then return to the ocean. John McPhee is a shad fisherman, and his passion for the annual shad run has led him, over the years, to learn much of what there is to know about the fish known as Alosa sapidissima, or "most savory". In The Founding Fish McPhee makes of his obsession a work of literary art. In characteristically bold and spirited prose, inflected here and there with wry humor, McPhee places the fish within natural history and American history. He explores the fish's cameo role in the lives of William Penn, Washington, Jefferson, Thoreau, Lincoln, and John Wilkes Booth. He travels with various ichthyologists, including a fish behaviorist and an anatomist of fishes; takes instruction in the making of shad darts from a master of the art; and cooks shad and shad roe a variety of ways. Mostly, though, McPhee goes fishing for shad, standing for hours in the Delaware River in stocking waders and cleated boots, or gently bumping over rapids in a chocolate-colored Kevlar canoe. His adventures in the pursuit of shad occasion the kind of writing, at once expert and ardent, in which he has no equal.
©2002 John McPhee (P)2002 Recorded Books
The Second John McPhee Reader, Book One
Summary
For a person who has not encountered John McPhee's lively writing, The Second John McPhee Reader is the perfect introduction. McPhee, author of Coming Into the Country, and Assembling California punctuates his delightful prose with a sharp sense of humor and a fascination with things most of us never bother to notice. Whether he's working for farmer in the Greenmarkets in Harlem, Brooklyn, or the Upper East Side in Giving Good Weight, or trekking through Switzerland in La Place de la Concorde Suissea, McPhee gives the listener an intimate and provocative glimpse of the physical landscape and the people who are shaped by it. This Reader showcases a writer who not only is in absolute command of his craft, but also who revels in the pleasures of a fragile world. Narrator Nelson Runger's gravelly voice powerfully conveys McPhee's understated writing. Intriguing and thought-provoking, this audiobook is a must-listen for anyone interested in the natural or human worlds.
©1996 John McPhee (P)1996 Recorded Books
The Patch
Summary
An "album quilt", an artful assortment of nonfiction writings by John McPhee that have not previously appeared in any book. The Patch is the seventh collection of essays by the nonfiction master. It is divided into two parts. Part 1, "The Sporting Scene", consists of pieces on fishing, football, golf, and lacrosse - from fly casting for chain pickerel in fall in New Hampshire to walking the links land of St. Andrews at an Open Championship. Part 2, called "An Album Quilt", is a montage of fragments of varying length from pieces done across the years that have never appeared in book form - occasional pieces, memorial pieces, reflections, reminiscences, and short items in various magazines including The New Yorker. They range from a visit to the Hershey chocolate factory to encounters with Oscar Hammerstein, Joan Baez, and Mount Denali. Emphatically, the author's purpose was not merely to preserve things but to choose passages that might entertain contemporary listeners. Starting with 250,000 words, he gradually threw out 75 percent of them and randomly assembled the remaining fragments as "An Album Quilt". Among other things, it is a covert memoir.
©2018 John McPhee (P)2018 Recorded Books