Quite possibly the most “old white upper crust man” book I have ever read. Made for reading at the yacht club and calling the wives Mrs. Husband’s Name in formal letters. I can’t say I felt anything but discomfort at the subject matter, where it’s good ole boys all the way down, and McPhee’s terse, Hemingway-request prose doesn’t do enough to represent the enmity of his subjects’ realities. Yet I liked the grandfatherly writing style, I don’t give a damn about all your Princeton adventures.

I prefer the nature writings. The last story on Alaska precisely captures why I moved there, too.