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Table of Contents
Table of Contents is a collection of eight pieces that range from Alaska to New Jersey, describing, for example, the arrival of telephones in a small village near the Arctic Circle and the arrival of wild bears in considerable numbers in New Jersey, swarming in from the Poconos in search of a better life ("Riding the Boom Extension," "A Textbook Place for Bears").
In "North of the C.P. Line" the author introduces his friend John McPhee, a bush-pilot fish-and-game warden in northern Maine, who is also a writer. The two men met after the flying warden wrote to The New Yorker complaining that someone was using his name. Maine also is the milieu of "Heirs of General Practice," McPhee's highly acclaimed report―virtually a book in itself―on the new medical specialty called family practice. Much of it takes place in the examining rooms of a dozen young physicans in various rural communities, where they are seen in the context of their work with a great many patients of all ages.
Two relatively short pieces revisit the subjects of earlier McPhee books. "Ice Pond" demonstrates anew the innovative genius of the physicist Theodore B. Taylor, who developed a way of making and using with impressive results in the conservation of the electrical energy. "Open Man" describes a summer day in New Jersey in the company of Senator Bill Bradley.
In "Minihydro," various small-scale entrepreneurs in New York State set up turbines at nineteenth-century mill sites and sell electricity to power companies. A nice little country waterfall can earn as much as two hundred dollars a year for someone with such a turbine. And, "Under the Snow," McPhee Goes back into black bear's dens in Pensylvania in winter, where he becomes intoxicated with affection for some five-pound cubs. They remind him of his daughters.
In "North of the C.P. Line" the author introduces his friend John McPhee, a bush-pilot fish-and-game warden in northern Maine, who is also a writer. The two men met after the flying warden wrote to The New Yorker complaining that someone was using his name. Maine also is the milieu of "Heirs of General Practice," McPhee's highly acclaimed report―virtually a book in itself―on the new medical specialty called family practice. Much of it takes place in the examining rooms of a dozen young physicans in various rural communities, where they are seen in the context of their work with a great many patients of all ages.
Two relatively short pieces revisit the subjects of earlier McPhee books. "Ice Pond" demonstrates anew the innovative genius of the physicist Theodore B. Taylor, who developed a way of making and using with impressive results in the conservation of the electrical energy. "Open Man" describes a summer day in New Jersey in the company of Senator Bill Bradley.
In "Minihydro," various small-scale entrepreneurs in New York State set up turbines at nineteenth-century mill sites and sell electricity to power companies. A nice little country waterfall can earn as much as two hundred dollars a year for someone with such a turbine. And, "Under the Snow," McPhee Goes back into black bear's dens in Pensylvania in winter, where he becomes intoxicated with affection for some five-pound cubs. They remind him of his daughters.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
22 people are currently reading
357 people want to read
About the author
John McPhee
131 books1,839 followersJohn Angus McPhee is an American writer. He is considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. He is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in the category General Nonfiction, and he won that award on the fourth occasion in 1999 for Annals of the Former World (a collection of five books, including two of his previous Pulitzer finalists). In 2008, he received the George Polk Career Award for his "indelible mark on American journalism during his nearly half-century career". Since 1974, McPhee has been the Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 52 reviews
July 24, 2018
McPhee showcases his mastery of writing about America’s places and bygone industries with both a scientist’s and historian’s eye. As always his prose is beautiful. There are eight chapters in this 1980’s experience. I feel that three of these chapters were wonderful.
In the chapter entitled Textbook Place for Bears McPhee follows wildlife biologists around as they tag black bears in the Delaware Gap area of New Jersey. The bears were coming from Pennsylvania either swimming the Delaware or crossing the bridge. This is at the time when the black bears were reappearing in NJ (still only a hundred or so) after being extirpated decades earlier. McPhee has a very keen eye for nature and describing the pressures that the biologists and volunteers experience and all the while wondering about the future of the black bear near population centers. As of 2018 there are black bears found in all New Jersey counties, so the efforts were successful.
In the chapter entitled Minihydro, after the government in the 1980’s mandates that big power companies pay mom and pop hydro producers top dollar for systems that can hook up to the grid, we see a land rush across the Northeast to claim the land and the associated dilapidated buildings and equipment. A fall height of 25 feet on a small river, will provide $200k in yearly revenue. One of the men he follows around looks for waterfalls of appropriate depth where there was once a mill or spillway, there are hundreds of possibilities. While this chapter on the surface is less interesting than capturing bears, McPhee is masterful in highlighting an area of American life and enterprise that no one else would ever write about.
The last chapter North of the CP Line highlights the life of a pilot in Maine who looks for poachers deep in the Maine wilderness. The pilot also shares the same name as the author, which makes it a bit funny. Again, another job that most people never knew existed that takes place in the remote wilds of our country.
John McPhee is one of my favorite non-fiction authors and has a rare ability to capture nostalgia for things I never knew I cared about or even knew existed.
I might not rate this book as highly as Encounters with an Archdruid or Coming into the Country but Table of Contents is quite good.
In the chapter entitled Textbook Place for Bears McPhee follows wildlife biologists around as they tag black bears in the Delaware Gap area of New Jersey. The bears were coming from Pennsylvania either swimming the Delaware or crossing the bridge. This is at the time when the black bears were reappearing in NJ (still only a hundred or so) after being extirpated decades earlier. McPhee has a very keen eye for nature and describing the pressures that the biologists and volunteers experience and all the while wondering about the future of the black bear near population centers. As of 2018 there are black bears found in all New Jersey counties, so the efforts were successful.
In the chapter entitled Minihydro, after the government in the 1980’s mandates that big power companies pay mom and pop hydro producers top dollar for systems that can hook up to the grid, we see a land rush across the Northeast to claim the land and the associated dilapidated buildings and equipment. A fall height of 25 feet on a small river, will provide $200k in yearly revenue. One of the men he follows around looks for waterfalls of appropriate depth where there was once a mill or spillway, there are hundreds of possibilities. While this chapter on the surface is less interesting than capturing bears, McPhee is masterful in highlighting an area of American life and enterprise that no one else would ever write about.
The last chapter North of the CP Line highlights the life of a pilot in Maine who looks for poachers deep in the Maine wilderness. The pilot also shares the same name as the author, which makes it a bit funny. Again, another job that most people never knew existed that takes place in the remote wilds of our country.
John McPhee is one of my favorite non-fiction authors and has a rare ability to capture nostalgia for things I never knew I cared about or even knew existed.
I might not rate this book as highly as Encounters with an Archdruid or Coming into the Country but Table of Contents is quite good.
September 28, 2020
This is a book for generalists. It’s likely that you don’t know much about black bear migration from PA to NJ, or about family medicine in rural Maine. I didn’t, and now I do.
You may read it and think, why in the world did McPhee write this? I’d love to read his answer, because it would certainly be beautifully written. And he might say something about how the world opens up when you become interested. And how being interested makes you interesting!
I have great respect for this author who writes poetry into mechanics and otherwise plain histories. Interested in so much, he urges me to be ever curious about the intricate world right here in my proximity.
Because being a generalist is really so much fun.
You may read it and think, why in the world did McPhee write this? I’d love to read his answer, because it would certainly be beautifully written. And he might say something about how the world opens up when you become interested. And how being interested makes you interesting!
I have great respect for this author who writes poetry into mechanics and otherwise plain histories. Interested in so much, he urges me to be ever curious about the intricate world right here in my proximity.
Because being a generalist is really so much fun.
June 11, 2023
Brilliant.
This is a writer who makes any subject interesting. A master voice. A woodsman. Fishing. Hunting. Coyotes. Maine. Hydroelectric power. Engineering adventures. Bears. New Jersey. A New Jersey politician. Yes I even looked up Bill Bradley and briefly wished he had made it to the presidency. A marvelous writer I will read again and again.
This is a writer who makes any subject interesting. A master voice. A woodsman. Fishing. Hunting. Coyotes. Maine. Hydroelectric power. Engineering adventures. Bears. New Jersey. A New Jersey politician. Yes I even looked up Bill Bradley and briefly wished he had made it to the presidency. A marvelous writer I will read again and again.
June 30, 2021
Reading John McPhee is, to use an apt analogy, like floating down a stream in a canoe. He doesn't drag you along in the rapids, but he'll let you paddle along and every once in a while he'll treat you to the rush of a particularly interesting bend.
Some examples of my favorite passages.
From 'Heirs of General Practice' (page 107):
From 'Minihydro' (page 228-229):
'North of the C.P. Line', pages 263-264):
It's worth reading through a hundred pages of John McPhee just to come across a single passage like this. McPhee has the ability to hold the reader's attention in his fingertips and play with it like silly-putty. He is clear and direct while still having fun with the language and form. And he always picks the most interesting topics.
Some examples of my favorite passages.
From 'Heirs of General Practice' (page 107):
The scene strongly brings to mind a stack of magazines tied up with string in an attic. It strongly brings to mind that medical superman of yesteryear, the old doc on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post with his stethoscope planted on the chest of a child's doll, the old doc who rode from house to house through deep snows with his black bag beside him and his roan gelding pulling the sleigh, the old doc who did appendectomies on the kitchen table, the old doc who worked nine days a week and rested on the tenth.
From 'Minihydro' (page 228-229):
Turbines designed for low-flow situations would be wasteful in times of high water. Turbines designed for high efficiency at, say, five hundred cubic feet per second might be ineffective in times of low water. Under certain conditions, turbines can go into a state of cavitation, wherein vaporizing water creates bubbles that implode on the metal and riddle it with tiny holes. The ideal turbine for a little mill up a creek somewhere in inconsistent country would be one that was prepared to take whatever might come, to sit there and react calmly in any situation, to respond evenly to wild and sudden demands, to make the best of difficult circumstances, to remain steadfast in time of adversity, to keep going, above all to press on, to persevere, and not vibrate, fibrillate, vacillate, cavitate, or panic - in short, to accept with versatile competence what is known in hydroelectrical engineering as the run of the river.
'North of the C.P. Line', pages 263-264):
I will believe anything about deer. Deer, in my opinion, are rats with antlers, roaches with split hooves, denizens of the dark primeval suburbs. Deer intensely suggest New Jersey. One of the densest concentrations of wild deer in the United States inhabits the part of New Jersey that, as it happens, I inhabit, too. Deer like people. They like to be near people. They like beanfields, head lettuce, and anybody’s apples. They like hibiscus, begonias, impatiens, azaleas, rhododendrons, boxwood, and wandering Jews. I once saw a buck with a big eight-point rocking-chair rack looking magnificent as he stood between two tractor-trailers in the Frito-Lay parking lot in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Deer use the sidewalks in the heart of Princeton.
It's worth reading through a hundred pages of John McPhee just to come across a single passage like this. McPhee has the ability to hold the reader's attention in his fingertips and play with it like silly-putty. He is clear and direct while still having fun with the language and form. And he always picks the most interesting topics.
July 5, 2016
Most interesting collection of topics. McPhee's easy writing style kept me fascinated as I read essays on new phone lines in remote Alaska and bears in New Jersey to family practice doctors in Maine. I often enjoy his immersion essays in The New Yorker.
November 8, 2019
For all of the information that McPhee covers, explains, and translates for his readers, he refuses to sacrifice the story of it all. Make no mistake - McPhee is not a journalist. He might do some reporter's work, but these are not stories of a reporter. These are stories of a storyteller.
Each story made me want to know more about the subject (for the first time in my life, I am wishing I could know more about Pennsylvania black bears, about ice fishing in Maine) as well as the people who work within the subject matter. McPhee doesn't wax romantic over any of his human characters, but his attention to them is one of care.
No one I've encountered can match McPhee in creative nonfiction. Table of Contents is a book that explores, in great depths, the craft of writing as well as the crafts of medicine, geology, and engineering. If you have not read McPhee, start here. If you have, you'll want to read this next.
Each story made me want to know more about the subject (for the first time in my life, I am wishing I could know more about Pennsylvania black bears, about ice fishing in Maine) as well as the people who work within the subject matter. McPhee doesn't wax romantic over any of his human characters, but his attention to them is one of care.
No one I've encountered can match McPhee in creative nonfiction. Table of Contents is a book that explores, in great depths, the craft of writing as well as the crafts of medicine, geology, and engineering. If you have not read McPhee, start here. If you have, you'll want to read this next.
January 1, 2020
The longest chapter “Heirs of General Practice” was definitely my favorite. If it were lengthened and made it’s own book it would have easily been 5 stars. It was interesting to read about the cases that family doctors treated in a rural part of Maine around the 1970s when the profession was new.
November 27, 2022
“Open Man” was a puff piece and “Minihydro” failed to hold my attention, but everything else here was five-star material. Of particular note was the novella-length “Heirs of General Practice.” Looking forward to more McPhee in my life.
June 25, 2023
John McPhee is my definition of an interesting man and makes me fascinated in even the most mundane of topics. If only every school teacher could communicate this way. I’m scouring the used bookstores and picking up everything with his name on the cover. A really great writer.
September 6, 2008
John McPhee uses a very personal voice in his essay “North of the C.P. Line,” something he usually does not do. He begins the essay by describing what he does for a living: “...moving around from place to place, person to person, as a reporter, a writer, repeatedly trying to sense another existence and in some ways to share it.” By writing this, he presents himself as an ordinary guy who enjoys learning and writing about other people. He is also implying that he tries so hard to understand everything about the characters he comes across, he practically becomes the character himself.
In most of his other essays, he describes the lives of individuals he meets, but rarely talks about himself. The only instance I can remember is in “Under the Snow,” where he briefly mentions that he has “...a third daughter,” but neglects to mention that he also has a wife, and a first and second daughter as well. In “North of the C.P. Line,” besides learning about John McPhee, the pivotal character in this essay, but we also find out a little about who John McPhee, the author, is.
McPhee consistently uses a more personal tone throughout the essay. He lets some of his emotions show, and reveals some of his own personal stories. For instance, when McPhee and his counterpart Jack are in the airplane, McPhee sees the fuel gauges and is concerned that there may not be enough gasoline. In all his other essays, he never revealed emotions of any kind.
.Many of the themes his other essays, such as man’s relationship with nature and the advancement of technology, are present here. And even some of the more minor motifs, such as the mentioning of numbers, local geographic features, and doughnuts, are mentioned here as well. His humorous style, visible on almost every page, shows us that he believes life is funny, if you really think about it.
Reading this essay gave me the feeling that John McPhee is leaving us with a sort of conclusion, as if he is retiring from writing. It is as if he is trying to sum up a lifelong career of writing by showing how he relates to all the essays he has written.
In most of his other essays, he describes the lives of individuals he meets, but rarely talks about himself. The only instance I can remember is in “Under the Snow,” where he briefly mentions that he has “...a third daughter,” but neglects to mention that he also has a wife, and a first and second daughter as well. In “North of the C.P. Line,” besides learning about John McPhee, the pivotal character in this essay, but we also find out a little about who John McPhee, the author, is.
McPhee consistently uses a more personal tone throughout the essay. He lets some of his emotions show, and reveals some of his own personal stories. For instance, when McPhee and his counterpart Jack are in the airplane, McPhee sees the fuel gauges and is concerned that there may not be enough gasoline. In all his other essays, he never revealed emotions of any kind.
.Many of the themes his other essays, such as man’s relationship with nature and the advancement of technology, are present here. And even some of the more minor motifs, such as the mentioning of numbers, local geographic features, and doughnuts, are mentioned here as well. His humorous style, visible on almost every page, shows us that he believes life is funny, if you really think about it.
Reading this essay gave me the feeling that John McPhee is leaving us with a sort of conclusion, as if he is retiring from writing. It is as if he is trying to sum up a lifelong career of writing by showing how he relates to all the essays he has written.
April 29, 2019
Like many of the author's books, this happens to be a collection of essays (one of them very lengthy) from the author's writing. The essays are miscellaneous, but if you have read and enjoyed the author's work before you will find a great deal here to enjoy. Even if one doesn't agree with all of the people that the author talks to or their approaches, and even if one has a fair amount of difference with the author as well, there is enough charm and graciousness here that there is always something to appreciate about McPhee's travels and his winsome descriptions of his conversations with others. There is certainly nothing particularly essential about this book and its contents, but it is a pleasant collection and one that has in common with the author's work an enjoyable attitude, making it a good way to spend some time. There are, after all, a great many worse ways to spend time than to spend it with an author like McPhee, who has a lot to say and says it well, and says some things that are at least thought provoking in a good way even where they turn out to be not as prophetic as the author would hope.
The first three essays in this 300 page collection are united by the author's interest in bears. In "Under The Snow" the author takes a look at hibernating bears and finds reminders of his own daughter. In "A Textbook Place For Bears" and "Riding The Boom Extension" he examines the expansion of the habitat of bears from Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains to New Jersey, where he happens to live. The longest essay in the collection is "Heirs Of General Practice," which examines some family practitioners in rural Maine and notes their attempts at providing a generalist approach to health care that would be overwhelmed by tests and specialists with increasing healthcare costs in future decades. After that there is a short essay about spending a day with Bill Bradley in "Open Man," an essay on the genius of Theodore Taylor in "Ice Pond," and a brief discussion of miniature hyrdoelectricity efforts in "Minihydro." But for my own personal tastes, the best essay in this collection is the last one, "North Of the C.P. Line," which is a tale straight of Philip Roth where the author meets his doppelganger, a Maine writer of the same name, who looks like some of the author's relatives, and who happens to be a writer himself.
The author is at his best, as usual, when he writes about people and allows them to speak and shows his own tolerant willingness to deal with them at face value. There are poignant moments here where the author's discussion of bears allows him to ponder his own family. The only essays that work less well are those where the author attempts to write about politics and portrays some of his own opinions and beliefs in his choice of subject. In his sprawling essay on some of Maine's family practitioners, he misses the key role that increasing costs would play in the future of health care, and focuses his attention on the doctors (probably because they are a more sympathetic centerpiece) rather than on the beancounters in the insurance companies whose desire to control costs would be more decisive. Likewise, in his discussion of minihydro efforts, he spends a great deal of time engaging in wishful thinking about energy sources to allow for the growth of small towns and not enough time wrestling with energy monopolies and the infrastructure of electricity generation. Still, a timeline where family doctors would have been important in America's health care and where minihydro could help preserve the independence and economic value of small towns would have been a better timeline than our own.
The first three essays in this 300 page collection are united by the author's interest in bears. In "Under The Snow" the author takes a look at hibernating bears and finds reminders of his own daughter. In "A Textbook Place For Bears" and "Riding The Boom Extension" he examines the expansion of the habitat of bears from Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains to New Jersey, where he happens to live. The longest essay in the collection is "Heirs Of General Practice," which examines some family practitioners in rural Maine and notes their attempts at providing a generalist approach to health care that would be overwhelmed by tests and specialists with increasing healthcare costs in future decades. After that there is a short essay about spending a day with Bill Bradley in "Open Man," an essay on the genius of Theodore Taylor in "Ice Pond," and a brief discussion of miniature hyrdoelectricity efforts in "Minihydro." But for my own personal tastes, the best essay in this collection is the last one, "North Of the C.P. Line," which is a tale straight of Philip Roth where the author meets his doppelganger, a Maine writer of the same name, who looks like some of the author's relatives, and who happens to be a writer himself.
The author is at his best, as usual, when he writes about people and allows them to speak and shows his own tolerant willingness to deal with them at face value. There are poignant moments here where the author's discussion of bears allows him to ponder his own family. The only essays that work less well are those where the author attempts to write about politics and portrays some of his own opinions and beliefs in his choice of subject. In his sprawling essay on some of Maine's family practitioners, he misses the key role that increasing costs would play in the future of health care, and focuses his attention on the doctors (probably because they are a more sympathetic centerpiece) rather than on the beancounters in the insurance companies whose desire to control costs would be more decisive. Likewise, in his discussion of minihydro efforts, he spends a great deal of time engaging in wishful thinking about energy sources to allow for the growth of small towns and not enough time wrestling with energy monopolies and the infrastructure of electricity generation. Still, a timeline where family doctors would have been important in America's health care and where minihydro could help preserve the independence and economic value of small towns would have been a better timeline than our own.
May 25, 2019
I've been doing a lot of re-reading lately, what with travel/flu/moving, so this book has been sitting on my bedside table for nearly two months. That said, it was still the full McPhee experience, and I'm sure I'll often call to mind his description of snuggling a baby bear under his down vest as he fondly recalls how snuggly his infant human daughters were at the same weight, following a wildlife biologist through the woods (as she worries about getting to her daughter's gymnastics meet), and the edge-of-the-seat recounting of a man lost in a Maine white-out snowstorm. Most of all, his description of deer as "rats with antlers, roaches with split hooves, denizens of the dark primeval suburbs. Deer intensely suggest New Jersey" made me laugh out loud.
Bless you, John McPhee, for your continued contribution to the school of "how to write narrative non-fiction" in your collected work!
ETA: This is the full deer paragraph --> "I will believe anything about deer. Deer, in my opinion, are rats with antlers, roaches with split hooves, denizens of the dark primeval suburbs. Deer intensely suggest New Jersey. One of the densest concentrations of wild deer in the United States inhabits the part of New Jersey that, as it happens, I inhabit, too. Deer like people. They like to be near people. They like beanfields, head lettuce, and anybody’s apples. They like hibiscus, begonias, impatiens, azaleas, rhododendrons, boxwood, and wandering Jews. I once saw a buck with a big eight-point rocking-chair rack looking magnificent as he stood between two tractor-trailers in the Frito-Lay parking lot in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Deer use the sidewalks in the heart of Princeton.”
Bless you, John McPhee, for your continued contribution to the school of "how to write narrative non-fiction" in your collected work!
ETA: This is the full deer paragraph --> "I will believe anything about deer. Deer, in my opinion, are rats with antlers, roaches with split hooves, denizens of the dark primeval suburbs. Deer intensely suggest New Jersey. One of the densest concentrations of wild deer in the United States inhabits the part of New Jersey that, as it happens, I inhabit, too. Deer like people. They like to be near people. They like beanfields, head lettuce, and anybody’s apples. They like hibiscus, begonias, impatiens, azaleas, rhododendrons, boxwood, and wandering Jews. I once saw a buck with a big eight-point rocking-chair rack looking magnificent as he stood between two tractor-trailers in the Frito-Lay parking lot in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Deer use the sidewalks in the heart of Princeton.”
August 2, 2014
The collection of creative non-fiction short stories that make up Table of Contents more than earns the description captivating. Eight stories take the reader deep into the heart of a particular subject matter, focusing all of John McPhee’s exciting energy on them. He manages to turn something ordinary into something extraordinary, only using the gift of words.
Under the Snow and A Textbook Place for Bears were vastly interesting stories focusing on the research work that goes into tracking bears. John McPhee plummeted me immediately into a world I knew nothing about, giving me no time to adjust or straighten my hat. He simply lays it out as if he is shouting “here it is!” I learned more about bears in these two stories than I ever learned about bears in an educational setting. John McPhee didn’t simply focus on the bears, though. He brings us into the lives of the researchers, the hunters, the campers and the civilians, giving multiple perspectives into one fascinating world.
Riding the Boom Extension is a cleverly written piece that introduced me to the intricacies of a system we have all but abandoned in our modern age; the landline telephone. If John McPhee can make something so obsolete in today’s world interesting and vivid in his writing, there is no reason to question his talent. He brings to life the system of dials and wires just as well as he does the people being introduced to the telephone for the first time. He wraps his story around connection, paralleling the topic with the community that he shares with us in the process of sharing his words.
Heirs of General Practice is one of the longer pieces in Table of Contents. It is no less extraordinary. We read about the origins of general medicine, the fine people who participate in it, and the struggles that come along with this field. As a reader, I know little about medicine, and I know even less about general practice. John McPhee takes a subject and a field of people we tend to ignore and drops them right in our laps, forcing us to listen to their stories. And my, do they have stories to tell. In this piece, we are shown maybe a dozen doctors in a dozen locations that still focus on the people, giving little medicine a big name. He reminds us that specialization leads to narrowness, and teaches us life lessons using sophisticated medical terminology. It’s just enough…and it’s not enough.
Open Man takes us on a trip through a blossoming politician’s average day. John McPhee writes about politicians and their politics in a way that leaves room for humanity. We meet not the crooked politician spreading his lies to the people he meets, but the previous basketball start that feels flustered and does the best he can. I, too, often forget that politicians are real people. Table of Contents seems to include this story simply to remind all of us readers that even those people our society deems it okay to despise are human.
Ice Pond and Minihydro tackle subjects we face today in an old-fashioned way. The way John McPhee does it is not only riveting but charming. He tells a story that speaks to us about using our natural resources to our own advantage, including ice and water. He brings to life certain people that have tried to use our planet’s resources to save both energy and money. John McPhee seems to know that the average person needs no more motivation than to do the right thing, while money, being the thing that often blinds us, keeps those in power from seeing the vast benefits. By putting the benefits of these projects into a positive light both morally and fiscally, John McPhee seems to make a case for projects that turn our own planet into a machine that can work for us.
North of the C.P. Line is the final story in this collection of amazing works. Simply put, it is a story about John McPhee. It brings the reader back to nature and living on the land in a very personal way, John McPhee using his own self as perspective. His subject is both a warden and a writer, leaving the reader smiling just a bit as we embrace the author in this highly personalized tidbit. A reader must simply take in this story in light of everything they feel like they already know about John McPhee.
John McPhee’s work in Table of Contents could be deemed writing genius if you’re open enough to the experience. Every single word he writes appears to drip honesty, and he makes readers care about these subjects in a way that probably never could have before. Of course, there are moments when it seems too much, or when it seems just too ordinary to continue. Then John McPhee turns around and surprises us with implications and revelations. He truly has the ability to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Under the Snow and A Textbook Place for Bears were vastly interesting stories focusing on the research work that goes into tracking bears. John McPhee plummeted me immediately into a world I knew nothing about, giving me no time to adjust or straighten my hat. He simply lays it out as if he is shouting “here it is!” I learned more about bears in these two stories than I ever learned about bears in an educational setting. John McPhee didn’t simply focus on the bears, though. He brings us into the lives of the researchers, the hunters, the campers and the civilians, giving multiple perspectives into one fascinating world.
Riding the Boom Extension is a cleverly written piece that introduced me to the intricacies of a system we have all but abandoned in our modern age; the landline telephone. If John McPhee can make something so obsolete in today’s world interesting and vivid in his writing, there is no reason to question his talent. He brings to life the system of dials and wires just as well as he does the people being introduced to the telephone for the first time. He wraps his story around connection, paralleling the topic with the community that he shares with us in the process of sharing his words.
Heirs of General Practice is one of the longer pieces in Table of Contents. It is no less extraordinary. We read about the origins of general medicine, the fine people who participate in it, and the struggles that come along with this field. As a reader, I know little about medicine, and I know even less about general practice. John McPhee takes a subject and a field of people we tend to ignore and drops them right in our laps, forcing us to listen to their stories. And my, do they have stories to tell. In this piece, we are shown maybe a dozen doctors in a dozen locations that still focus on the people, giving little medicine a big name. He reminds us that specialization leads to narrowness, and teaches us life lessons using sophisticated medical terminology. It’s just enough…and it’s not enough.
Open Man takes us on a trip through a blossoming politician’s average day. John McPhee writes about politicians and their politics in a way that leaves room for humanity. We meet not the crooked politician spreading his lies to the people he meets, but the previous basketball start that feels flustered and does the best he can. I, too, often forget that politicians are real people. Table of Contents seems to include this story simply to remind all of us readers that even those people our society deems it okay to despise are human.
Ice Pond and Minihydro tackle subjects we face today in an old-fashioned way. The way John McPhee does it is not only riveting but charming. He tells a story that speaks to us about using our natural resources to our own advantage, including ice and water. He brings to life certain people that have tried to use our planet’s resources to save both energy and money. John McPhee seems to know that the average person needs no more motivation than to do the right thing, while money, being the thing that often blinds us, keeps those in power from seeing the vast benefits. By putting the benefits of these projects into a positive light both morally and fiscally, John McPhee seems to make a case for projects that turn our own planet into a machine that can work for us.
North of the C.P. Line is the final story in this collection of amazing works. Simply put, it is a story about John McPhee. It brings the reader back to nature and living on the land in a very personal way, John McPhee using his own self as perspective. His subject is both a warden and a writer, leaving the reader smiling just a bit as we embrace the author in this highly personalized tidbit. A reader must simply take in this story in light of everything they feel like they already know about John McPhee.
John McPhee’s work in Table of Contents could be deemed writing genius if you’re open enough to the experience. Every single word he writes appears to drip honesty, and he makes readers care about these subjects in a way that probably never could have before. Of course, there are moments when it seems too much, or when it seems just too ordinary to continue. Then John McPhee turns around and surprises us with implications and revelations. He truly has the ability to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.
July 21, 2020
I enjoyed the first two essays and I loved the third one, Heirs of General Practice. To be a successful GP one must be a people person. Specialists, on the other hand are glorified mechanics. Both are needed for comprehensive medical care, but good GPs are more necessary as they concentrate on prevention and nutrition. McPhee takes a reader through the lives and the working days of rural doctors. He lets us meet the people they treat, whole families of them, with their specific woes, which are often a lot more than medical problems.
The essay on GPs is so outstanding it easily cancels for me the books latter 5 essays. Wading through a couple of those was like eating steel-wool. The one about McPhee's doppelganger was the best of the four as we meet and hang out with the other John McPhee: a bush-pilot, fish-and-game warden in northern Maine.
The essay on GPs is so outstanding it easily cancels for me the books latter 5 essays. Wading through a couple of those was like eating steel-wool. The one about McPhee's doppelganger was the best of the four as we meet and hang out with the other John McPhee: a bush-pilot, fish-and-game warden in northern Maine.
May 21, 2020
I really enjoyed this book of essays. Every "chapter" is a different topic and what I learned was fascinating and strangely relevant. A black bear in a New Jersey neighborhood was on the news a few nights ago. McPhee gave me a deeper understanding of that in his first essay. The dams that just failed in Michigan? The next to last writing highlights the people and process of private dam and hydroelectric ownership. McPhee is like a fascinating friend who has great stories of stuff you never encountered.
August 20, 2022
These are New Yorker essays that appeared in the early 1980s. But so much good McPhee! The New Jersey biologist trapping bears for science was terrific. But as she misses her daughter’s performance, she laments that women should be at home. Argh! The last piece was the best! The other John McPhee, a Maine Warden pilot. It’s tempting to dismiss this collection as dated, since they are from the 1980s, but it never hurts to have a reality check of where we were (first bear caught in New Jersey) and how we got here. It made me want to Google the stories for updates.
June 14, 2025
"Table of Contents" is a collection of vignettes that were previously published in magazines in the 1980s, most notably The New Yorker. They range from Alaska to Maine to New Jersey to his "other self," a bush pilot who is also named John McPhee. All were very well written, but I needed to down-grade my rating when subjects were covered that I wasn't really interested in. (Mini-hydro-electric plants? Yawn.)
August 6, 2017
Nobody writes better non-fiction than John McPhee! His range of interests is astounding and his presentation of his varied subjects holds your interest even if it is one you previously had no interest in or had never even thought of. I have read all of his books and eagerly look forward to reading anything else he publishes.
June 29, 2025
Favorite essays were about bears, circle Alaska, Minihydro and John McPhee. The piece about McPhee confirms for me the author’s range. Yes he can write like he’s from both the east and west coasts, yes he could pass as an engineer, but the care he takes describing his other and his impression at the end of the essay made me think McPhee could pass as a literary scholar.
July 30, 2017
This book is eight short stories about different subjects of interest interesting
January 11, 2018
Has some great pieces, but one or two that are a little dull, or at least not quite as gripping as his usual work. Still a very enjoyable read though.
August 3, 2018
Another McPhee classic
September 25, 2018
"North of the CP Line" was my favorite.
October 5, 2019
Somewhere I'd heard John McPhee referenced as a role model for longform journalism. It's true, he's wonderful.
October 18, 2019
Few writers find a their namesake such a worthy topic.
February 22, 2020
McPhee makes the most arcane knowledge interesting reading.
May 18, 2025
Short essays from the 80’s. My, have things changed!
September 6, 2025
Another excellent McPhee book. It’s like having an incredibly interesting and articulate friend tell you stories.
September 16, 2022
This is another book that I didn’t finish. It bogged down too much about halfway through the Minihydro chapter. But then I quickly skimmed the last chapter and found it more interesting, so it’s like I read the whole thing.
Generally I have kind of a love/bored relationship with McPhee. The first book of his that I read was Coming into the Country. Fantastic. I also loved Rising from the Plains, Basin and Range, and In Suspect Terrain. Maybe it was the subject matter: geology. His descriptions and writing were lyrical and enchanting.
But Table of Contents, not so much. His piece about Sen. Bill Bradley was just so much fawning; the essay about General Practitioners of medicine was very interesting but repetitive; the two chapters about bears held my interest most of the time, maybe because they were the opening chapters; the chapter about Minihydro was exhaustive and exhausting. Like Giving Good Weight and The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed, unfinishable.
Generally I have kind of a love/bored relationship with McPhee. The first book of his that I read was Coming into the Country. Fantastic. I also loved Rising from the Plains, Basin and Range, and In Suspect Terrain. Maybe it was the subject matter: geology. His descriptions and writing were lyrical and enchanting.
But Table of Contents, not so much. His piece about Sen. Bill Bradley was just so much fawning; the essay about General Practitioners of medicine was very interesting but repetitive; the two chapters about bears held my interest most of the time, maybe because they were the opening chapters; the chapter about Minihydro was exhaustive and exhausting. Like Giving Good Weight and The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed, unfinishable.
October 28, 2023
After hearing from multiple people that I should read the essay in this book titled ‘Heirs of General Practice’ I finally found the time (and the book). I really enjoyed this essay in particular as it harks back to the days when Family Medicine was an up and coming specialty run by a group of young, talented doctors whose primary focus was rural medicine. McPhee paints a compelling picture of a few communities in rural Maine that enthusiastically embrace a few of these young doctors. The writing was straightforward with a simplicistic beauty to it. A also enjoyed his opening essay about tracking bears in New England and the story about a telephone company in the Yukon region of Alaska. His short stiry about hydropower was not quite as compelling and dragged on a bit for me. Overall a satisfying read and looking forward to reading more McPhee in the future.
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