La Place de la Corcorde Suisse – 3/5 Stars This is an odd little book. Over all, I liked it, but it’s limited in its scope and appeal. John McPhee has written a long profile (likely an extension of a long-form essay/reportage) on the Swiss Army. He begins with the same kinds of assumptions probably most non-Swiss people have about the Army, that there’s a kind of in born joke to the whole thing, but then goes from there. The most important thing to say […]
I’d much rather watch people do what they do than talk to them across a desk
Draft no 4 – 3/5 Stars I don’t know much about John McPhee. I didn’t grow up reading the New Yorker or being around or knowledgeable about public intellectuals and they’re not much discussed in academic classes. What I was hoping this was is a book cataloging good writing and revision rules and advice the way books by like William Zinsser are. Instead it’s more like a writing memoir from a widely known and documented public career. There’s some advice here and there, but it’s […]