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Giving Good Weight
"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.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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About the author
John McPhee
132 books1,851 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 54 reviews
July 2, 2021
I don't think I'd read this one before. Five old New Yorker articles from the mid-70s. Great stuff, and really hasn't dated. No surprises there: I'm a serious John McPhee fanboy. You should be, too.
1. New York's Greenmarket, a big farmer's market, is the title article, back when farmer's markets were new. McPhee talks to the farmers/vendors, mostly, and works for a couple of them for awhile. The farmers generally liked the black people best as customers, finding them less fussy. Then the Spanish, and the wealthy whites are the least popular: fussy and rude. The farmers like getting paid much more than wholesale, and the customers like good produce at reasonable prices. Win-win, and 4 stars. 73 pp.
2. New Jersey Public Service had a serious proposal to build a large, floating nuclear power plant 3 miles offshore, in the early 70s. McPhee talked to the engineers, the biologists, and the oceanographers studying the proposal. The utility seemed to be doing a careful and methodical job , and the scientists appreciated the work. The biologists were more dubious about the project, the oceanographers more supportive. No fatal technical issues were found -- the design was tested for a simulated million-year storm (a super-hurricane) and a simultaneous shipwreck of a supertanker on the enclosing breakwater. Citizen opposition had begun, but no permits had been granted when the project was put on indefinite hold in 1978. 5 stars 44 pp.
3. McPhee meets one New York's 2 pinball wizards, tries out his favorite Bally machine, then the two wizards meet at the Circus Circus off Times Square. Short, sweet, very entertaining. I was never very good at pinball. McPhee's piece makes me want to play a game or three. 4 stars, 12 pp.
4. A canoe trip down Maine's St. John River, in Aroostook County, almost to Canada. McPhee's companions include a Saltonstall, a Cabot from Boston, and a Byrd, a descendant of the polar explorer. At the time, there was an active proposal to build Lake Dickey, a large hydropower pool, but the Maine river remains largely a wilderness waterway today. 3.5+ stars, 47 pp.
5. "Brigade de Cuisine" is a article about a chef-owner and his wife, the pastry chef, who operated a restaurant in the wilds of upstate NY, and insisted on anonymity for both themselves and their restaurant, which was about to move anyway. "Otto", trained in Switzerland, grew up in Spain and worked there again later, where he met "Anne", his wife. McPhee spent considerable time with them, much of it in the kitchen, listening and eating -- McPhee says that the 20 0r 30 best meals in his life were at the couple's rural restaurant. There might be more lists of ingredients and dishes here than I really needed to know, but this is also the most entertaining essay in the book. Here's "Anne", who's served a Chivas to a customer, who accuses her of serving something cheaper (it was Chivas): "You get out of here and you *never* come back!" The woman ran for her car. 4 stars, 60 pp.
1. New York's Greenmarket, a big farmer's market, is the title article, back when farmer's markets were new. McPhee talks to the farmers/vendors, mostly, and works for a couple of them for awhile. The farmers generally liked the black people best as customers, finding them less fussy. Then the Spanish, and the wealthy whites are the least popular: fussy and rude. The farmers like getting paid much more than wholesale, and the customers like good produce at reasonable prices. Win-win, and 4 stars. 73 pp.
2. New Jersey Public Service had a serious proposal to build a large, floating nuclear power plant 3 miles offshore, in the early 70s. McPhee talked to the engineers, the biologists, and the oceanographers studying the proposal. The utility seemed to be doing a careful and methodical job , and the scientists appreciated the work. The biologists were more dubious about the project, the oceanographers more supportive. No fatal technical issues were found -- the design was tested for a simulated million-year storm (a super-hurricane) and a simultaneous shipwreck of a supertanker on the enclosing breakwater. Citizen opposition had begun, but no permits had been granted when the project was put on indefinite hold in 1978. 5 stars 44 pp.
3. McPhee meets one New York's 2 pinball wizards, tries out his favorite Bally machine, then the two wizards meet at the Circus Circus off Times Square. Short, sweet, very entertaining. I was never very good at pinball. McPhee's piece makes me want to play a game or three. 4 stars, 12 pp.
4. A canoe trip down Maine's St. John River, in Aroostook County, almost to Canada. McPhee's companions include a Saltonstall, a Cabot from Boston, and a Byrd, a descendant of the polar explorer. At the time, there was an active proposal to build Lake Dickey, a large hydropower pool, but the Maine river remains largely a wilderness waterway today. 3.5+ stars, 47 pp.
5. "Brigade de Cuisine" is a article about a chef-owner and his wife, the pastry chef, who operated a restaurant in the wilds of upstate NY, and insisted on anonymity for both themselves and their restaurant, which was about to move anyway. "Otto", trained in Switzerland, grew up in Spain and worked there again later, where he met "Anne", his wife. McPhee spent considerable time with them, much of it in the kitchen, listening and eating -- McPhee says that the 20 0r 30 best meals in his life were at the couple's rural restaurant. There might be more lists of ingredients and dishes here than I really needed to know, but this is also the most entertaining essay in the book. Here's "Anne", who's served a Chivas to a customer, who accuses her of serving something cheaper (it was Chivas): "You get out of here and you *never* come back!" The woman ran for her car. 4 stars, 60 pp.
October 16, 2018
John McPhee has me questioning a lot of my life choices right now. How have I made it this far without ever tasting truffles? Why don't I treat myself to a proper feast, perhaps some grilled eel (a personal weakness, but it's been forever), some smoked shad-roe pâté mousse, or some good ol' stuffed clams, dammit. I made the mistake of reading his journalistic essay, Brigade de Cuisine, after tossing together a flopped experimental supper inspired by the vegetables rotting in my fridge, and I lay in bed with my mouth watering at the creations of the unnamed chef he observed on and off for a year. On the weekend I read a section aloud to a friend, describing rendered beef fat and pounding a pork loin with a wooden mallet, and he just stared at me: Why am I reading this, exactly? My usual reaction to red meat is revulsion (which I have ample opportunity to display; the cook at work's favourite hobby is shoving raw meat in my face), but John McPhee describes everything so tenderly that I would hunt down this chef if the essay wasn't written in the 1970's.
I recommend his essays on green markets in New York City and a canoe trip through Northern Maine with equal verve. You get the sense that McPhee really inhabits a place, marinates in its essence for months in order to write about it. The other two essays here were of less interest to me, but it's a well-rounded introduction to a keen mind.
I reserve my highest praise, however, for his chef d'oeuvre Annals of the Former World. I will visit this restaurant again.
I recommend his essays on green markets in New York City and a canoe trip through Northern Maine with equal verve. You get the sense that McPhee really inhabits a place, marinates in its essence for months in order to write about it. The other two essays here were of less interest to me, but it's a well-rounded introduction to a keen mind.
I reserve my highest praise, however, for his chef d'oeuvre Annals of the Former World. I will visit this restaurant again.
July 16, 2021
Giving Good Weight by John McPhee
This collection is composed of four non-fiction stories that are about fifty pages each. There is also a ten page story called Pinball Philosophy that’s not really long enough to evaluate.
1. Giving Good Weight - this is the title essay. It is largely about working at the farmers market on Manhattan’s east side. McPhee had to weigh a lot of vegetables for customers. And one customer was surprised that McPhee wasn’t trying to rip her off saying you give good weight. McPhee also gets to visit some of the source farms - an egg farm and an onion farm. I had no idea how dense these chicken farms are. One of the most insightful stories about New York City that I’ve ever read. Just brilliant. 5 stars.
2. The Atlantic Generating Station. In the early 1970’s a plan is laid out by the New Jersey Public Works to build a floating nuclear power plant in the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast! The projected cost is $375 million. We learn that in the past on a few occasions when coastal cities were stricken with long term power outages, ships were used as electrical power generators so getting the conduits to shore would be no problem. But they would have to build a breakwater around the plant. They also used a ship in the Panama Canal to help power the locks when the water levels were low during the summer and not enough electricity was produced. As far as the feasibility studies, we know that the ocean is “the world’s best heat sink”. We also learn that New Jersey has had four recorded earthquakes in the past two centuries but this is a floating plant so it would be a tsunami that might be more of a problem. In its recorded history the largest tsunami to hit the New Jersey coast was less than a foot high. So no problems there after all. But alas by the late 70’s - perhaps unsurprisingly - the proposed project is scrapped due to inflation and other cost projections. 5 stars.
3. In the Keel of Lake Dickey we follow a group of canoeists in four canoes as they paddle down a hundred mile section of the lengthy St. John river in Maine. This river as it reaches the ocean even reverses flow. Samuel de Champlain discovered the river in 1604 some sixteen years prior to the Mayflower’s arrival. We learn other random facts like fiddleheads - the tips of ferns - can be quite tasty. We learn about the paddling techniques in anticipation of the dangerous Big Rapids some one hundred miles down river. A canoe capsizes but the men are rescued and the trip abruptly ends a few hours later at Dickey. Dickey was a proposed dam site that was scrapped based on environmentalist protests and cost run ups. There are however three other dams located on the 418 mile long river. 4 stars.
4. The last book is Brigade de Cuisine. The author gets to know some Latvian chefs in New York City and explores their lives and their story of fleeing the Nazi’s when they were children. 3 stars.
4.5 stars overall. Very few authors can write non-fiction as consistently well as John McPhee.
This collection is composed of four non-fiction stories that are about fifty pages each. There is also a ten page story called Pinball Philosophy that’s not really long enough to evaluate.
1. Giving Good Weight - this is the title essay. It is largely about working at the farmers market on Manhattan’s east side. McPhee had to weigh a lot of vegetables for customers. And one customer was surprised that McPhee wasn’t trying to rip her off saying you give good weight. McPhee also gets to visit some of the source farms - an egg farm and an onion farm. I had no idea how dense these chicken farms are. One of the most insightful stories about New York City that I’ve ever read. Just brilliant. 5 stars.
2. The Atlantic Generating Station. In the early 1970’s a plan is laid out by the New Jersey Public Works to build a floating nuclear power plant in the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast! The projected cost is $375 million. We learn that in the past on a few occasions when coastal cities were stricken with long term power outages, ships were used as electrical power generators so getting the conduits to shore would be no problem. But they would have to build a breakwater around the plant. They also used a ship in the Panama Canal to help power the locks when the water levels were low during the summer and not enough electricity was produced. As far as the feasibility studies, we know that the ocean is “the world’s best heat sink”. We also learn that New Jersey has had four recorded earthquakes in the past two centuries but this is a floating plant so it would be a tsunami that might be more of a problem. In its recorded history the largest tsunami to hit the New Jersey coast was less than a foot high. So no problems there after all. But alas by the late 70’s - perhaps unsurprisingly - the proposed project is scrapped due to inflation and other cost projections. 5 stars.
3. In the Keel of Lake Dickey we follow a group of canoeists in four canoes as they paddle down a hundred mile section of the lengthy St. John river in Maine. This river as it reaches the ocean even reverses flow. Samuel de Champlain discovered the river in 1604 some sixteen years prior to the Mayflower’s arrival. We learn other random facts like fiddleheads - the tips of ferns - can be quite tasty. We learn about the paddling techniques in anticipation of the dangerous Big Rapids some one hundred miles down river. A canoe capsizes but the men are rescued and the trip abruptly ends a few hours later at Dickey. Dickey was a proposed dam site that was scrapped based on environmentalist protests and cost run ups. There are however three other dams located on the 418 mile long river. 4 stars.
4. The last book is Brigade de Cuisine. The author gets to know some Latvian chefs in New York City and explores their lives and their story of fleeing the Nazi’s when they were children. 3 stars.
4.5 stars overall. Very few authors can write non-fiction as consistently well as John McPhee.
October 27, 2025
a quintet of nourishing, beautifully written essays. mcphee at his best.
on the ur-farmers’ markets of new york city:
on a scheme (complimentary) to construct floating nuclear power stations:
on a pair of strangely aristocratic pinball wizards at a time when the game was banned in new york city:
on the remarkable st. john river in the northern country of maine:
on a chef running an epicurean restaurant in the middle of nowhere:
i am not exaggerating when i say that reading books as good as this one are alone an excellent, unimpeachable reason to continue living.
on the ur-farmers’ markets of new york city:
Onions. Onions. Multilayered, multilevelled, ovate, imbricated, white-fleshed, orange-scaled onions. Native to Asia. Aromatic when bruised. When my turn is over and a break comes for me, I am so crazed with lust for these bulbous herbs—these enlarged, compressed buds—that I run to an unharvested row and pull from the earth a one-pound onion, rip off the membranous bulb coat, bare the flesh, and sink my teeth through leaf after leaf after savory mouth-needling sweet-sharp water-bearing leaf to the flowering stalk that is the center and the secret of the onion. Yash at the end of the day will give me three hundred pounds of onions to take home, and well past the fall they will stand in their sacks in a corner of the kitchen—the pluperfect preservers of sweet, fresh moisture—holding in winter the rains of summer.
on a scheme (complimentary) to construct floating nuclear power stations:
Pritchard—young, handsome, tall—stood there towering above the floating nuclear plants and looking doubtful. As it happened, he had been born in Belfast and educated at Oxford. He was the author of a book called Turtles of the World. Kehnemuyi—stocky, with short-cropped graying hair and shining brown eyes—had grown up in Istanbul, where his father was an importer of fine stationery. And now here they were, paths crossed, a Turk educated in Illinois and an Irishman from Oxford, standing in an artificial ocean in Florida and joining the issue of a floating nuclear plant off the coast of New Jersey and aspects of it that conceivably could concern the world.
on a pair of strangely aristocratic pinball wizards at a time when the game was banned in new york city:
Game 5 under way. They are pummelling the machine. They are heavy on the corners but light on the flippers, and the scoreboard is reacting like a storm at sea. With three balls down, both are in the thirty-thousand range. Buckley, going unorthodox, plays his fourth ball with one foot off the floor, and raises his score to forty-five thousand points—more than he scored in winning the two previous games. He smiles. He is on his way in, flaring, with still another ball to play. Now Lukas snaps his fourth ball into the ellipse. It moves down and around the board, hitting slingshots and flippers and rising again and again to high ground to begin additional scoring runs. It hits sunburst caps and hole kickers, swinging targets and bonus gates. Minute upon minute, it stays in play. It will not die.
on the remarkable st. john river in the northern country of maine:
The rapid is beautiful, bouldery, and bending—the forest rising steeply from the two sides. It is called the Big Black Rapid because it is near the mouth of the Big Black River, which flows into the St. John a mile downstream. There is nothing black about the rapid. It is blue and mostly white, running over big rocks and ledges, with standing waves on long diagonals, like ranges of hills. The wind is so stiff now it is tearing spray off the tops of the waves. The rapid curves left, then right. If I thought I had one chance in ten of going into the river, I wouldn’t run the rapid. I would line it—let the canoe down slowly on ropes—or carry around it. If I do get a thrill out of missing a rock and flying along on racing water, that is not what I came for. The rapid is only a part of the river—of a hundred and some miles of this trip and this part of the St. John—and the highest pleasure I can derive from running it is to get from the beginning to the end of the stretch of white water with canoe and cargo sound and, if possible, dry. This is a canoe trip, not a rodeo. When the Canadian voyageurs, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, came to rapids in their bark canoes, they did not seek out the deepest souse holes and the highest standing waves. With their four-ton cargoes of furs, they looked for the fil d’eau —the safest, surest route through the rapid. For us, just being out here—in this country, on this river—is the purpose of the journey, and not shooting like spears to hit God knows what and where. A test of courage is not the point—not my point, anyway. I have too little courage to waste any on a test. In our own fashion, with our own bulging gear lashed into the four canoes, we had better think like the voyageurs.
on a chef running an epicurean restaurant in the middle of nowhere:
The dacquoise resembles cake and puts up a slight crunchy resistance before it effects a melting disappearance between tongue and palate and a swift transduction through the bloodstream to alight in the brain as a poem.
i am not exaggerating when i say that reading books as good as this one are alone an excellent, unimpeachable reason to continue living.
May 13, 2019
Thinning my book shelves I got sidetracked re-reading a book I read many years ago. I still enjoyed most of it though I've grown a bit less patient with some of the detail. The title essay Giving Good Weight, about an early farmer's market in 1970's NYC is still my favorite. At the time of first reading I worked in at the Pike Place Market here so it resonated deeply with me.
My other favorite Brigade to Cuisine was still interesting though my fantasy of having such a restaurant as described has long faded. Too much work!
My other favorite Brigade to Cuisine was still interesting though my fantasy of having such a restaurant as described has long faded. Too much work!
February 13, 2008
Only John McPhee can make everything from cutting wood in the forests of the northeast to green markets in NYC to a floating nuclear reactor into an absorbing read. There's also a memorable description of an extraordinary chef preparing a a fresh octopus for dinner at his restaurant. I'll say no more.
February 26, 2019
I just wanted to add my five to boost his already--and deservedly--high ranking. Brigade is the piece that led me to McPhee, and to Oranges and The Headmaster, both unforgettable to me.
To my head, heart, and soul, the finest writer of nonfiction ever. Warm, humane, observant, witty--just a marvel to me.
To my head, heart, and soul, the finest writer of nonfiction ever. Warm, humane, observant, witty--just a marvel to me.
September 5, 2021
The fact that I made it through a collection of stories that included an 80-page discussion of the chef at a French restaurant in the suburbs of New York attests to McPhee’s well-documented skills as a writer and reporter.
April 28, 2023
Utterly remarkable
December 18, 2008
It was a mixed bag.
As with many McPhee's, this was a collection of shorter writings.
We've got McPhee working on farms and at farmer's market's around NYC - entertaining; we've got New Jersey thinking about building floating nuclear power stations - quite fascinating; we've got a story about pinball -which, honestly, was what I was most looking forward to, but turned out to be utterly forgettable; we've got, yet another, story about McPhee canoeing (and I already have a thing about canoing), so I was dreading this one, but it was the most enjoyable canoe writing yet; and we end with an obscure restaurant near NYC - it sounds like a French haute cuisine version of Shopsin's - which makes you want to pack up and leave tonight, and eat there for every meal tomorrow - until you realize the book was written in 1975, and there is no restaurant to go to :(
Overall, hooray for McPhee - but it isn't one I would start people with, but I'm considering colored flagging some of the stories to loan out.
As with many McPhee's, this was a collection of shorter writings.
We've got McPhee working on farms and at farmer's market's around NYC - entertaining; we've got New Jersey thinking about building floating nuclear power stations - quite fascinating; we've got a story about pinball -which, honestly, was what I was most looking forward to, but turned out to be utterly forgettable; we've got, yet another, story about McPhee canoeing (and I already have a thing about canoing), so I was dreading this one, but it was the most enjoyable canoe writing yet; and we end with an obscure restaurant near NYC - it sounds like a French haute cuisine version of Shopsin's - which makes you want to pack up and leave tonight, and eat there for every meal tomorrow - until you realize the book was written in 1975, and there is no restaurant to go to :(
Overall, hooray for McPhee - but it isn't one I would start people with, but I'm considering colored flagging some of the stories to loan out.
October 16, 2016
Read only "Brigade de Cuisine" and the story about pinball (read through half of "Giving Good Weight" before giving up), and the 4 stars rating apply only to these 2 essays. McPhee's writing is great, but his essays tend to be a tag draggy. He has this writing technique where he recites a long string of nouns to convey the magnitude of items being discussed, and this technique is repeated to the point of being irritating - especially when I don't really understand the jargon he uses (e.g. the names of french dishes in "Brigade de Cuisine"). As much as I liked "Brigade de Cuisine", I felt it could be half the length, so that one could reasonably expect to finish it in one sitting. Still, I found it a remarkably effective piece of writing, in that it achieved its goal of documenting the process of creating food of superlative quality and unfathomable complexity, as well as exploring the chef's motivations as an artist and idealist. A thoroughly memorable piece of work.
March 11, 2024
7 / 10
Inconsistent, but when it works it truly is great. While I found the middle three stories to be mostly aimless and forgettable, the first and last were phenomenal. McPhee has a totally distinct voice that, when it seems like he's passionate about the subject matter, can create something beautiful.
The title story is scattershot in a wonderfully rewarding way. The frequent jumps between place and subject, with the seemingly never ending din of demanding customers is a perfect fit with the subject matter itself. McPhee is able to capture the actual feeling of a farmer's market, while also exploring the stories and history of those involved. It's a perfect opening and a fantastic introduction to McPhee as a writer.
Brigade de Cuisine, the final and my favourite of the stories, narrows its focus slightly, but loses nothing for it. This is as true a depiction I've ever seen of genuine artistic and creative passion that, by necessity, is expressed in an almost overwhelmingly stressful way. The final, extended section focusing on one specific night in the kitchen with Otto is both beautiful and tense, and really is one of those moments that makes you question this being non-fiction. McPhee just manages to express something that he presumably has no real experience in with such depth, it really is remarkable.
It's a shame that the other three stories didn't land for me, because if they had reached similar heights of the ones that did, this would be among my favourite reads of the year. But still, 150ish pages of great writing was well worth my time.
Inconsistent, but when it works it truly is great. While I found the middle three stories to be mostly aimless and forgettable, the first and last were phenomenal. McPhee has a totally distinct voice that, when it seems like he's passionate about the subject matter, can create something beautiful.
The title story is scattershot in a wonderfully rewarding way. The frequent jumps between place and subject, with the seemingly never ending din of demanding customers is a perfect fit with the subject matter itself. McPhee is able to capture the actual feeling of a farmer's market, while also exploring the stories and history of those involved. It's a perfect opening and a fantastic introduction to McPhee as a writer.
Brigade de Cuisine, the final and my favourite of the stories, narrows its focus slightly, but loses nothing for it. This is as true a depiction I've ever seen of genuine artistic and creative passion that, by necessity, is expressed in an almost overwhelmingly stressful way. The final, extended section focusing on one specific night in the kitchen with Otto is both beautiful and tense, and really is one of those moments that makes you question this being non-fiction. McPhee just manages to express something that he presumably has no real experience in with such depth, it really is remarkable.
It's a shame that the other three stories didn't land for me, because if they had reached similar heights of the ones that did, this would be among my favourite reads of the year. But still, 150ish pages of great writing was well worth my time.
December 10, 2018
He and I had an equipment shootout, which he seemed to think he was winning. He put up his new tent, an ice-blue JanSport with glass wands and a three-quarter length fly, the whole affair a subtle compromise—in breathing and impermeable nylons—between the statistical probabilities of incoming water and air. Round, repulsive, mychophane, it appeared to be a model of the Houston Astrodome, its ceiling four feet high.
The first of what could be a whole lot of McPhee for me (thanks, Morgan!). Not a word out of place; still lively and vivid: I heard a truck backfire in New York City, I tasted strange things in a secret restaurant, I heard a river do a thing I didn’t even know rivers could do. If there’s a problem with reading little journeys like these it’s that it threatens to substitute, too well, for taking (much less writing) my own.
February 9, 2021
The title of the book refers to the first story, about the New York green market, or farmer's market. McPhee works the booth of one of the farmers and captures the energy of the market through dialogue, descriptions of the clientele and time spent on the farm harvesting crops, touring the land and talking with the families. The dialogue at the market is especially effective at conveying the essence of working a booth.
Other stories in the book cover a plan to build a series of nuclear power plants off the coast of New Jersey, a canoe trip down the St. John's River in Maine, pinball philosophy and an extended story about a gourmet restaurant outside New York City. His range of interests and his curiosity drive each of the stories. I highly recommend this book. It is a quick read.
Other stories in the book cover a plan to build a series of nuclear power plants off the coast of New Jersey, a canoe trip down the St. John's River in Maine, pinball philosophy and an extended story about a gourmet restaurant outside New York City. His range of interests and his curiosity drive each of the stories. I highly recommend this book. It is a quick read.
August 9, 2025
Five essays, on (1) New York greenmarkets, (2) the Atlantic Generating Station, a never-built offshore nuclear reactor, (3) two pinball experts and their machines, (4) a canoe trip down the St. John River, and (5) an expert chef who is unassuming to the point of virtual anonymity. Good writing, but not good enough to enliven subjects I found mostly uninteresting. Only the last article held my attention all the way through. The Atlantic Generating Station had its interesting points. The rest: ho hum.
June 16, 2022
This was feeling like a three-star McPhee to me as I wound my way through it. When you have favorite authors, and read everything of theirs, you inevitably face moments of realization; "this might be my least favorite book of my favorite author." Bittersweet.
But, the last piece in this book 'Brigade Du Cuisine' won me over and brought the book safely up into the middle realms of his body of work.
But, the last piece in this book 'Brigade Du Cuisine' won me over and brought the book safely up into the middle realms of his body of work.
June 24, 2018
His writing, as always, enlivens the commonplace while illuminating it: farmers' markets, nuclear power research, pinball, canoeing in northern Maine, and a New York chef.
September 15, 2018
A classic collection of essays. I've returned to this book many times over the years and find McPhee's writing among the best.
June 25, 2019
Typical John McPhee, which I like, going into great detail about farmers markets in the New York City area.
August 3, 2019
McPhee's style is a pleasure to read. He makes the obscure interesting. He takes delight in the arcane. He discovers interesting facts about this world that make life worth living.
August 7, 2019
The title essay captures New York values beautifully. And the language! He has the Archie Bunker vernacular down which makes me homesick and tickled, both.
December 5, 2019
Marvelous descriptions of diverse peoples and places in the melting pot of America.
Diverse and mind-opening. Enjoyable reading!
Diverse and mind-opening. Enjoyable reading!
May 21, 2021
Best were the title and final articles, NY farmer's markets and a country restaurant chef. Canoeing article also good - typical McPhee, which is always worth reading.
July 13, 2022
Fine writing and a slice of the 1970s. McPhee goes all-in when he tackles a story. The last story, in the collection, Brigade de Cuisine, reads like a novel, all the way to the end.
March 26, 2023
Typical McPhee so learned a bunch of new words. Five separate essays. All 3's except, The Pinball Philosophy - 2, Brigade de cuisine - 4
September 13, 2023
‘The Keel of Lake Dickey’ about the upper St. John River (Baker Lake to the Allagash) was a real highlight.
August 29, 2024
Always interesting, excellenmt observer and entertaining writer. The chef's story was especially well crafted, but then I know more about cooking than I do about pinball.
July 27, 2008
A collection of essays from one of America's most talented essayists. Giving Good Weight was a gorgeous essay on te farmers markets in NYC, the Atlantic Generating Station on the brilliant plan that never came to pass to build a floating nuclear power plant off the coast of NJ (just what that state needs), the Pinball Philosophy on the competitive world of pinball players, The Keel of Lake Dickey on the joys of canoeing and Brigade de Cuisine (the reason why I bought the book) on a talented chef who wants to remain anonymous (alas!).
November 9, 2019
Collection of articles written during the late 1970's. Time of environmental movement and oil embargos (then Northeast depended on oil heating). Also when food choice (natural vs. processed) was becoming important. McPhee immerses himself in these articles while giving profiles of interesting, albeit anonymous, people, a great deal of information about truck farming, nuclear power stations, canoeing on a wild river, gourmet cooking, food shopping and pinball. And lists, lots and lots of lists.
July 13, 2009
John McPhee is a great writer - pure and simple. His style is that of a reporter. One that enmeshes himself in his subject and writes from the heart. This book is diverse and always interesting. From farmer's markets in New York City, to the possibility of creation of a floating nuclear reactor off of New Jersey, to a chef at a small inn in New York. Fabulous writing. (Oh, and from the 1970's...)
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