Back jacket of a book by John McPhee. Text: "The Founding Fish is ... far more than a fishing book. It is a mini- encyclopedia, a highly informative and entertaining amalgam of natural and personal history, a work in a class by itself" -ROBERT H. BOYLE, The New York Times Book Review Cruded as "a fishing classic" (The Economist) upon its publication in hardcover John McPhee's twenty-sixth book is a braid of personal his- tory, satural history, and American history, in descending order of volcane spring, American shad—Alosa sapidissimaleave the ocean in saw bede of thousands and run heroic distances upriver to spawn. MrPhee a shad fisherman himself—recounts the shad's cameo role in the lives of George Washington and Henry David Thoreau. He fishes with famous ichthyologists and visits their laboratories; he takes instruc- sion in the making of shad darts from a master of the art; and he cooks shad in a variety of ways, delectably explained at the end of the book. Mostly, though, he goes fishing for shad in various North American rivers, and he "fishes the same way he writes books, avidly and in- tensely. He wants to know everything about the fish he's afterits his- tory, its habits, its place in the cosmos" (Bill Pride, The Denver Post). His adventures in pursuit of shad occasion the kind of writing expert and ardent-at which he has no equal. "A blue-chip tour of the American shad." - Kirkus Reviews "Under McPhee's close eye, everything about this fish is fascinating." etc.
Paperback book cover showing a fish (American Shad), and text:
JOHN McPHEE, The Founding Fish
I was introduced to John McPhee in grad school. “Encounters With the Archdruid” was assigned reading in an enviro policy class, which approached the topic from the perspective of motivating factors that underlie policy.
McPhee’s writing hooked me; I read a […]
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