Uncommon Carriers (Thorndike Nonfiction)

Uncommon Carriers (Thorndike Nonfiction)

book data

264 ratings, 3.80 average rating, 68 reviews (more data...)

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published

November 22nd 2006 by Thorndike Press

binding

Hardcover, 377 pages

isbn

0786290927 (isbn13: 9780786290925)

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 384)

All ratings | 5 stars (43) | 4 stars (121) | 3 stars (57) | 2 stars (14) | 1 star (3) | avg 3.80

all | this edition

Howard

Howard rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

08/31/07

John McPhee is one of my favorite New Yorker writers. This book is a collection of articles whose common theme is the magnitude of the transportation systems that criss-cross America. He hangs out with a long-haul trucker, visits UPS's main hub (through which everything produced by Americans seems to flow), retraces a river journey made by Thoreau, rides a coal train from Wyoming to Georgia, and floats down the Mississippi on a barge. The book is quite intimate, as McPhee focuses on the ordinan...more

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Espen

Espen rated it:

(review of isbn 0865477396)

12/16/07

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: anyone

John McPhee specializes, like Tracy Kidder, in detailed and ruminative reportages about things and people we see everyday, but seldom think about. In this collection of articles, he primarily studies transportation, describing the workings of long-distance trucking, coal trains, cargo ships, barges and a memorable case study of the workings of "The Sort", UPS' humongous sorting facility in Loisville, Kentucky.

Moving writing, quite literally. An example for any academic writ...more

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Pris

Pris rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

01/04/09

There are two places in the world, home and everywere else,,and everywhere else is the same., 11 Jun 2006

There are two places in the world -- home and everywhere else, and everywhere else is the same.'

"The most beautiful truck on earth-Don Ainsworth's present sapphire-drawn convexing elongate stainless steel mirror- get s smidgen over six miles to the gallon. As its sole owner, he not only counts it calories with respect to it gross weig...more
There are two places in the world, home and everywere else,,and everywhere else is the same., 11 Jun 2006

There are two places in the world -- home and everywhere else, and everywhere else is the same.'

"The most beautiful truck on earth-Don Ainsworth's present sapphire-drawn convexing elongate stainless steel mirror- get s smidgen over six miles to the gallon. As its sole owner, he not only counts it calories with respect to it gross weight but with regard to the differing fuel structures of the states it traverses. It is much better to take Idaho fuel than phony-assed Oregon fuel. The Idaho fuel includes all the taxes. The Oregon fuel did not. Oregon feints with an attractive price at the pump, but then shoots an uppercut into the ton-mileage." In "Uncommon Carriers" we come to know Don Ainsworth, the intelligent, fastidious owner-driver of a meticulously kept 18-wheeler.

John McPhee rides from Atlanta to Washington state with Don Ainsworth, owner and operator of a sixty-five-foot, five-axle, and eighteen wheel chemical tanker carrying hazmets. John McPhee's writing carries us along in the seat with Don and John, and I have a new hero now, Don Ainsworth. A trucker worth his weight in gold and like Reader's Digest's old series, "a most unforgettable character". This book is "a grown-up version of every young boy's and girl's, I might add, fantasy life,"

This is John McPhee's 28th novel. What John McPhee's books all have in common is that they are about real people in real places. Here, he is out and about with people who work in freight transportation. Over the past eight years, John McPhee has spent time in the company of people who work in freight transportation. He attends ship-handling school on a pond in the foothills of the French Alps, where, for tuition of $15,000 a week, skippers of the largest ocean ships refine their capabilities in twenty-foot scale models. He goes up the "tight-assed" Illinois River on a "towboat" pushing a triple string of barges, the overall vessel being "a good deal longer than the "Titanic."" And he travels by canoe up the canal-and-lock commercial waterways traveled by Henry David Thoreau and his brother, John, in a homemade skiff in 1839.

The most fascinating piece, McPhee visits the UPS hub at the Louisville, Kentucky, airport, where 5,000 workers sort a million packages every night. The building, with four million square feet of floor space and five miles of exterior walls, houses an almost entirely automated skein of conveyors where packages containing everything from Jockey shorts to live lobsters find their rightful destination in minutes--a sort of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory for the world of mail-order commerce.

John McPhee and his son-in-law spend five days in a canoe, retracing the route Henry David Thoreau wrote about in his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. Though there is no freight involved, it is an engaging essay nonetheless, as the canoeists encounter a terrain much changed since the 19th century. This piece was a
Disappointment. It is well written, but not up to his par, in my opinion.

John McPhee ends his book y revisiting with Don Ainsworth thirty-six months after he had first left him. As He says, "If you have crossed the American continent in the world's most beautiful truck, you prefer not to leave it forever". Yes, suh, BK, this is the best of McPhee's books about people and this is the best there is. Highly recommended. prisrob 6-10-06
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Matt

Matt rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

01/01/09

Read in December, 2008

John McPhee shadows a chemical tanker truck driver across the country, a barge captain on the Illinois river and a train engineer for a >1 mile long coal train in Wyoming among other things. I like this book. Highlights included ruminations on how much gasoline truck drivers use up idling in truck stops heating or air-conditioning there cabs (answer: a lot), and a tour of the UPS central processing center which is basically a fully automated maze of like 12 or 15 levels of conveyor belts mo...more

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Blaire

Blaire rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

12/29/08

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in December, 2008

I read very little non-fiction, but I like everything John McPhee writes. There's really noone like him. Whatever the topic he's writing about, I find the structure of his books fascinating. This one is no exception. The other thing I like about him is that he manages to insinuate himself into corners of our society that are very specialized and outside of most people's experience so that he can live what he's writing about. It ends up being a very intimate view of his subject rather than me...more

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Ron

Ron rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

09/29/08

Read in September, 2008

The breadth of John McPhee's notice and interest over the last 40+ years of writing on various "real world" topics is impressive, to use an inadequate term. He has written about oranges, merchant seamanship, urban farmers markets, Bill Bradley when he was an All-American basketball player at Princeton, and Alaska's people, geography, and geology, to name just a few of his subjects.

McPhee is a staff writer for the New Yorker, and many of his books have grown out of pieces o...more

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Stef

Stef rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

03/02/08

bookshelves: audiobook, nonfiction

Read in February, 2008

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by the author, but it doesn't seem to have an ISBN.

I read this as part of my quest to understand how everything is connected to everything else, and how it is economically feasible to create very inexpensive products by shipping materials all over the world. It's a set of essays mostly about shipping modalities, but each essay goes at the subject from a different angle (or several angles).

The book doesn't really answer the "how c...more

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Sally

Sally rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

02/15/08

Read in February, 2008

recommended to Sally by: jane
recommends it for: you!

i like john mcphee's writing in general, even though it can be heavy on facts - you know, facts, hoo boy! the first piece is about cross country trucking, interesting in itself much to my surprise, but also because some places mentioned are the same as what carol and i saw in october. i do love it if it's about ME, even peripherally. the second piece is about the ship handling school near grenoble to which both of my brothers went 20+ years ago, so almost about ME. kind of. the third piece ab...more

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Hannah

Hannah rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

12/27/07

Read in January, 2007

I wouldn't characterize this as a badly written book overall, but I will say that I lost interest at many points in the narrative. The book follows his journeys with various freight carriers, such as a chemical tanker, a tow boat on the Illinois River, coal trains in and around Wyoming, truckloads and then plane-loads of lobsters from Canada, and least interestingly (to me) a canoe in New England, tracing a route taken by Thoreau.

I found the parts about trucking to be very enlighten...more I wouldn't characterize this as a badly written book overall, but I will say that I lost interest at many points in the narrative. The book follows his journeys with various freight carriers, such as a chemical tanker, a tow boat on the Illinois River, coal trains in and around Wyoming, truckloads and then plane-loads of lobsters from Canada, and least interestingly (to me) a canoe in New England, tracing a route taken by Thoreau.

I found the parts about trucking to be very enlightening (I will be sure to remember them on my next roadtrip), and the truck driver that McPhee rode along with was quite a character. Also, the daily function of the Union Pacific railroad was pretty fascinating. I had never really thought about what would happen if you were driving a 1.5 mile long train up and then down a peak. Even though the grades for trains that length are never steep, the idea of having to put the brakes on the front of the train, while accelerating the rear is pretty terrifying.

Then there was a chapter about people learning how to maneuver large ships in a scale model of the ocean, on scaled down ships, even with scaled down people on the docks, in the middle of the French Alps, which SOUNDS like a fun read but for me was very boring. I also could have done without the chapter about tow-boating, although that also sounds like a very challenging trade, and the idea of constantly moving and having smaller boats deliver meals and things to you en route was pretty cool.

By far the least interesting to me was the Thoreau chapter. Although it appears that the river being navigated in the canoe was (is?) used for freight, neither the author's trip nor Thoreau's were actually for this purpose. I see it as a very narcissistic essay that McPhee decided to throw into the book because he is a Thoreau fan and thought it was cool that he'd taken the same boat trip as his idol. Not surprisingly, to those of us reading the book to learn more about the way freight moves around the world and the people who move it, this was not as cool as he had thought it would be.

My favorite section began by following thousands of lobsters on their journey from cold-water holding tanks in Nova Scotia to restaurants all over the world, via UPS headquarters in Kentucky. The descriptions of the UPS hub in Louisville are amazing. It sounds like some enormous hotwheels track, with packages whirling about and being directed by computers and sometimes college students. Even more interesting was the revelation that UPS has its own college program and helps students attend if they work at this hub. Although all the people McPhee interviewed seemed to think this was a great deal, to me it sounded exhausting. In order to attend class during the day, one would need to work at night, with sometimes only three hours of sleep, and all this for $8 per hour. I suppose to alot of people this is still a good deal, and particularly outside of California, where one could actually make use of such a salary, but I'm not sure I would be able to cope. Anyhow, as it turns out, in addition to shipping things and educating people, UPS also stores parts for all kinds of products, including Bentleys and Rolls Royces, manages the inventory and shipping for companies such as the one that makes baseball bats for the Major League, AND actually repairs and services many products, including Toshiba computers! That's right, if you own a Toshiba and it needs fixing, somebody at UPS will probably fix it for you, and then send it right back! Who knew?

Ultimately, although I cannot call John McPhee a poor writer, this book is definitely all over the place, and not well organized. Essay by essay, each one has its merit, but I am not sure they belong in a collection like this. I can say for sure that by the end of this year, this book will be closer to the bottom of my list than the top....less

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Joe

Joe rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

11/14/07

Read in October, 2007

much of this collection of several essays is what i could call excruciatingly educational, that is, the topics are ones you could hardly imagine ever studying (the details of how to guide a barge of the ohio river?), especially in this much detail, and yet, with mcphee as your guide, it becomes downright interesting.

some sections tho glow with their own light. the essay centered on the UPS package distribution hub (called "out in the sort") should have wide appeal due if n...more

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Eric

Eric rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

12/07/08

I loved this book. I actually read the sections when they appeared in The New Yorker. I assume few changes were made. McPhee must have the best job in the world getting to ride with an over-the-road trucker across the United States; traveling down the Illinois River on a towboat and linked barges (something I've always really wanted to do down the Mississippi with a friend of mine]; and following freight trains from the cab. Talk about your Walter Mitty! His articles and books are filled with ...more

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Nicki

Nicki added it (review of isbn 0374280398)

12/30/07

When McPhee writes about the freight industry, he isn t talking about the logistics behind UPS, or the hassles suffered by passengers at the mercy of an out-gunned airline industry. He is talking about the really big stuff: trucks with at least 18 wheels. People who captain ocean-going tankers that take more than an hour to come to a full stop. Pilots who fly the massive cargo planes over oceans and that will never show an in-flight movie. He rides on freight trains that race across the plains ...more

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Clifton

Clifton rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

10/02/08

Read in September, 2008

How much do you know about the army of 18-wheelers thundering down every American highway at all hours of the day and night? How much thought do you give to your ability to select a live New Brunswick lobster at any seafood restaurant in Oklahoma?

Great nonfiction illuminates the unseen, unnoticed world surrounding us. Uncommon Carriers begins and ends with a trip in an 18-wheeler, and in between travels by rail, tug and plane. In this collection of shortish essays, John McPhee tak...more

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Seth

Seth rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

08/22/08

Read in August, 2008

I both really liked and was pretty disappointed by this book. On the up side, it has some fascinating essays by John McPhee on transportation, the environment and the economy. On the down side, it turns out that I've read every single one of these essays in the New Yorker, and the addition of his retracing of the Thoreau brothers' excursion up the New England waterways (which I found kind of mind-numbing the first time I read it: perfectly capturing the experience of a slow afternoon on an overh...more

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Janet

Janet rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

04/05/08

bookshelves: decent-read

Read in March, 2008

Once again, John McPhee takes a subject--in this case, commerce transportation in the U.S.--and waxes both poetical/lyrical and erudite/dull. McPhee writes about traveling with a long-haul, hazardous materials trucker, cruising up the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers on barges, and sitting at a standstill on the wide open plains of the Midwest in Union Pacific train engines.

As always, his writing is vivid and it's easy to picture the people (really, characters) and places he's descri...more

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Adam

Adam rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

11/01/07

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in October, 2007

a really interesting look at the lives of people we don't often interact with. there were real nuggets. like the section one about Dan Ainsworth, chemical tanker driver. after reading the omnivore's dillemna, i particularly liked reading about UPS and its globalized methods of shipping one box, before 9/11, from one floor on the world trade center to UPS's central shipping facility, in kentucky, back to a different floor in the world trade center. the people in this book are heroic people with a...more

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Craig

Craig rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

11/30/07

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in October, 2007

This author, John McPhee, has pretty cool articles in The New Yorker.
Based on those articles he has expanded them into a book.
McPhee travels with truck drivers, barge captains, Train Engineers and more, to write about everything involved in how products and resourses make their way to their destinations.
Who new how much stuff you have to learn to be a truck driver or how complicated it is to navigate a barge down the Illinois or Mississippi rivers?
It's a very interesting...more

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dpa

dpa rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

12/19/08

Love McPhee in general. This collection is mixed, though, with some essays clearer and more interesting than others. Worth picking up for a quick read of the trucker essays.

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Jeremy

Jeremy rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

07/16/08

bookshelves: nonfiction

Read in July, 2008

John McPhee always starts and ends his stories in the middle. You have to work to follow him, but the wonderful thing is that it doesn't feel like work. It feels like you're sitting next to him in the cab of a coal train listening in as he banters with the engineer, and that if you pay attention, you'll get the inside jokes they're trading.

"Uncommon Carriers" in particular is great fun, filled with big trucks, big trains and big ships. This is a book about freight transport...more

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Gregory

Gregory rated it:

(review of isbn 0374280398)

08/26/08

Read in August, 2008

Readers have strong reactions to McPhee. I'm in the "love" camp. The theme that holds together this collection of essays is large-scale shipping. There's a piece on tugging 30,000 tons of barge up the Illinois river, another on coal trains that stretch to over a mile long. When cresting a hill, the train must simultaneously brake in the front and apply power in the rear, lest a coupling give way. An essay in two parts about a long-haul tanker trunk opens and closes the collection. McPh...more

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