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Silk parachute / John McPhee.

By: Material type: TextTextPublication details: New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010.Edition: 1st edDescription: 227 p. ; 22 cmISBN:
  • 0374263736
  • 9780374263737
Subject(s):
Contents:
Silk parachute -- Season on the chalk -- Swimming with canoes -- Warming the jump seat -- Spin right and shoot left -- Under the cloth -- My life list -- Checkpoints -- Rip Van Golfer -- Nowheres.
Summary: The brief, brilliant essay Silk Parachute has become McPhee's most anthologized piece of writing. In the nine other pieces here, McPhee writes, with his characteristic humor and intensity, about lacrosse, photography, weird foods, and other varied recollections.Summary: The essay "Silk Parachute," which first appeared in The New Yorker a decade ago, has become John McPhee's most anthologized piece of writing. In the nine other pieces here--highly varied in length and theme--McPhee ranges with his characteristic humor and intensity through lacrosse, long-exposure view-camera photography, the weird foods he has sometimes been served in the course of his reportorial travels, a U.S. Open golf championship, and a season in Europe "on the chalk" from the downs and sea cliffs of England to the Maas valley in the Netherlands and the champagne country of northern France. Some of the pieces are wholly personal, including recollections of his early years, but each piece, on whatever theme, contains a personal aspect in which McPhee suggests why he was attracted to write about the subject, and each opens like a silk parachute, lofted skyward and suddenly blossoming with color and form.--From publisher description.
Fiction notes: Click to open in new window
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 810.9005 M172 Available 33111005608522
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A WONDROUS NEW BOOK OF MCPHEE'S PROSE PIECES--IN MANY ASPECTS HIS MOST PERSONAL IN FOUR DECADES

The brief, brilliant essay "Silk Parachute," which first appeared in The New Yorker a decade ago, has become John McPhee's most anthologized piece of writing. In the nine other pieces here-- highly varied in length and theme--McPhee ranges with his characteristic humor and intensity through lacrosse, long-exposure view-camera photography, the weird foods he has sometimes been served in the course of his reportorial travels, a U.S. Open golf championship, and a season in Europe "on the chalk" from the downs and sea cliffs of England to the Maas valley in the Netherlands and the champagne country of northern France. Some of the pieces are wholly personal. In luminous recollections of his early years, for example, he goes on outings with his mother, deliberately overturns canoes in a learning process at a summer camp, and germinates a future book while riding on a jump seat to away games as a basketball player. But each piece--on whatever theme--contains somewhere a personal aspect in which McPhee suggests why he was attracted to write about the subject, and each opens like a silk parachute, lofted skyward and suddenly blossoming with color and form.

Silk parachute -- Season on the chalk -- Swimming with canoes -- Warming the jump seat -- Spin right and shoot left -- Under the cloth -- My life list -- Checkpoints -- Rip Van Golfer -- Nowheres.

The brief, brilliant essay Silk Parachute has become McPhee's most anthologized piece of writing. In the nine other pieces here, McPhee writes, with his characteristic humor and intensity, about lacrosse, photography, weird foods, and other varied recollections.

The essay "Silk Parachute," which first appeared in The New Yorker a decade ago, has become John McPhee's most anthologized piece of writing. In the nine other pieces here--highly varied in length and theme--McPhee ranges with his characteristic humor and intensity through lacrosse, long-exposure view-camera photography, the weird foods he has sometimes been served in the course of his reportorial travels, a U.S. Open golf championship, and a season in Europe "on the chalk" from the downs and sea cliffs of England to the Maas valley in the Netherlands and the champagne country of northern France. Some of the pieces are wholly personal, including recollections of his early years, but each piece, on whatever theme, contains a personal aspect in which McPhee suggests why he was attracted to write about the subject, and each opens like a silk parachute, lofted skyward and suddenly blossoming with color and form.--From publisher description.

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