I have recently been reading several books by John McPhee which I have been really enjoying. Recently my reading has either tended towards either technical non-fiction works or fiction that is easy to read - sci-fi and thrillers. John McPhee’s writing is non-fiction, but meticulously crafted in a way that delights in its use of the english language. The facts and observations of non-fiction are seamlessly integrated into the writing. It is information dense, but does not seem that way.

My journey to discovering John McPhee’s writing was slightly tortuous. I have using GNU Emacs as my text editor recently. Mickey Petersen’s book Mastering Emacs along with his website and blog of the same name has been a significant influence in this.

In the article Wordsmithing in Emacs when explaining the dictionary features in Emacs, Mickey notes that Webster’s dictionary from 1913 is one of the best. In supporting this opinion he makes reference to Jon Somer’s blog post, You’re probably using the wrong dictionary. Jon’s article makes reference to John McPhee’s New Yorker article Draft #4. In this article, McPhee talks about how the fourth draft of an essay or article is where he refines the language used and is often looking for alternative words that will better articulate what he is trying to express.

I would like to do more writing. In his essay, Putting ideas into words, Paul Graham opines that the act of writing down your ideas forces you to think through them and express them more clearly. I found the same thing in my work, when trying to share or develop an idea with colleagues or a client, putting the idea down in words or in a well constructed diagram on a slide helps to refine and improve the idea. As a related aside, I find the idea of silent meetings intriguing. The idea that writing your idea down prior to the meeting and then reading and commenting on this in silence before resolving the comments and actions as a group at the end seems like it has a lot of advantages.

The first John McPhee book that I read was Looking for a Ship. In it, John has follows Andy Chase, a US merchant maariner, as he looks for his next job on a ship, and when he finds a job on the S.S. Stella Lykes, follows him on a voyage to South America and back. I am a keen sailor and have always had a strong interest in pretty much all things nautical, so the subject matter of the book naturally appealed to me.

I followed this up with reading Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process. This is a collection of essays on the writing process, including the essay Draft No. 4 that I mentioned above. I found this book fascinating, with its detail of the process that McPhee uses in his writing. I have a fascination with the idea of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM). In the essay Structure, McPhee talks about the process he uses to organise and condense the many notes that he collects in his research. He uses some custom software on a now largely superceded text editor program, but it is very definitely a form of PKM.

In several places in Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process, McPhee makes reference to his long running interest in Alaska. His book Coming into the Country is a collection of three of his essays on Alaska. I’ve just finished the first essay, At the Northern Tree Line: The Encircled River. The extent to which his writing was able to convey a sense of being there in the Alaskan wilderness impressed me. The early descriptions of a campsite, the clarity of the river and the behaviour of the fish were particularly vivid.

I’m looking forward to reading some more of his books, including:

  • Oranges - In Draft #4., McPhee talks about writing this with some fascinating discussion about how closely related the various citrus varieties are.
  • Annals of the Former World - A collection of essays about the geology of North America.
  • The Survival of the Bark Canoe - A story about a trip down a river and the history and survival of native american bark canoe.