Issyvoo

Books Uncommon Carriers

Thanks to McPhee’s elegant prose and his close observation, we learn a great deal about the machines, but even more about the people who operate them. The author takes almost boyish pleasure in describing how to actually operate a towboat, or a mile-long coal train, and it is the pilots, engineers, and skippers he encounters who are the true “uncommon carriers” of his title.

Tweet this quote Read the full piece at New York Review of Books Witold Rybczynski New York Review of Books 2006

Don Ainsworth, strongly opinionated collector of leather boots made from every animal from anteater to water buffalo, with whom McPhee crosses the country in the cab of a chemical tanker truck, so loves “manicuring the ship” — the mirror-like sheen of his stainless steel tank — that he pays extra to have it washed in deionized water that leaves no spots.

Tweet this quote Read the full piece at New York Times Adam Hochschild New York Times 2006