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    Irons in the Fire
    Irons in the Fire
    Irons in the Fire
    Audiobook7 hours

    Irons in the Fire

    Written by John McPhee

    Narrated by Nelson Runger

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 27, 2008
    ISBN9781440798849
    Author

    John McPhee

    John McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and was educated at Princeton University and Cambridge University. His writing career began at Time magazine and led to his long association with The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1965. Also in 1965, he published his first book, A Sense of Where You Are, with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and in the years since, he has written over 30 books, including Oranges (1967), Coming into the Country (1977), The Control of Nature (1989), The Founding Fish (2002), Uncommon Carriers (2007), and Silk Parachute (2011). Encounters with the Archdruid (1972) and The Curve of Binding Energy (1974) were nominated for National Book Awards in the category of science. McPhee received the Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 1977. In 1999, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Annals of the Former World. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

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    Reviews for Irons in the Fire

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    • 5/5
      Al Lehman In a land where a common saying is that no one eats his own beef, the Nevada brand inspector becomes crucial to civilization. Without one, There'd be a lot of dead bodies." Rustling in the 1990's is still an occupational hazard where ranches are measured in tens of thousands of acres. John McPhee, a favorite writer of mine, has recently published a new collection of essays entitled, Irons in the Fire. The title essay is his investigation of brands and their history. The brand inspector's job is to keep everyone honest and the ranchers accept this and approve. The inspector also has to be part cop, part private investigator, part, Indian tracker, and have a whole lot of knowledge and instinct for the people and the country in order to recognize hundreds of brands and how they might be changed.

      In another essay, McPhee writes about the virgin forest, particularly a spot near Brunswick New Jersey where the suburbs grow so fast that animals are often trapped between motels. The land had originally belonged to the Van Liew family who had acquired it in 1701 and farmed all but sixty-five acres they set aside. In the 1950s they consulted a sawyer and discovered that the value of some of the white oaks that dated to the 17th century was "expressible in ducats." Making their desire to sell public, all sorts of organizations came out of the woodwork :-)) to prevent the felling of these trees. Not enough money was raised until the Carpenters' Union bought the land and gave it to Rutgers University in 1955. The restriction on Rutgers were that only a small path could be maintained along one edge. They could not enter or change anything else on the sixty-five acres – just study it from a distance. There are only a few other areas of virgin forest left in the United States – one in Illinois along the Wabash. The Hutcheson Memorial Forest owned by Rutgers is perhaps the most famous. It has supported the research for hundreds of advanced degrees including thirty-six Ph.D.s. "So many articles, papers, theses, and other research publications have come out of Hutcheson Forest that – as the old saw goes – countless trees have been cleared elsewhere just in order to print them."