John McPhee
Born: 01-01-1931
John McPhee is a celebrated American author and journalist, renowned for his pioneering work in creative nonfiction. A long-time contributor to The New Yorker, McPhee has authored more than 30 books, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Annals of the Former World." His writing often explores themes of geology, nature, and human endeavor. Known for his meticulous research and engaging prose, McPhee has influenced countless writers and remains a pivotal figure in literary journalism.
Book summaries for books written by John McPhee
Quotes
If you free yourself from the conventional reaction to a quantity like a million years, you free yourself a bit from the boundaries of human time.
Geology is the study of pressure and time. That's all it takes really, pressure, and time.
What I could see was a vast, far-reaching landscape, with low, rolling hills, and far off to the north and east, the ranges of mountains that held the coal.
It is very easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends.
A low but spreading ridge of mountains runs across the middle of the continent and terminates in the east, as the Appalachians.
The earth is mostly just a boneyard. But pretty in the sunlight.
The summit of Everest is marine limestone.
Geologists are hardly ever able to study the Earth's interior and must infer what they cannot see from what they can.
It is a world of mountains and ice, and it is everywhere in motion.
Geology is the science of two much time.
The Mississippi has made its own geography.
The surface of the earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean.