New Releases by John McPhee

Landscape photographs accompany selections from McPhee''s writings about Switzerland, Alaska, the West, and the Pine Barrens

First published in book form 1985, Table of Contents is a collection of eight pieces written by John McPhee between 1981 and 1984. Geographically and thematically, they range from Alaska to New Jersey, describing, for example, the arrival of telephones in a small village near the Arctic Circle and the arrival of wild bears in considerable numbers in New Jersey, swarming in from the Poconos in search of a better life. The essays in this collection, which The New York Times called "pretty close to flawless," offer an excellent introduction to the work of one of our finest writers.

The first of John McPhee''s works in his series on geology and geologists, Basin and Range is a book of journeys through ancient terrains, always in juxtaposition with travels in the modern world—a history of vanished landscapes, enhanced by the histories of people who bring them to light. The title refers to the physiographic province of the United States that reaches from eastern Utah to eastern California, a silent world of austere beauty, of hundreds of discrete high mountain ranges that are green with junipers and often white with snow. The terrain becomes the setting for a lyrical evocation of the science of geology, with important digressions into the plate-tectonics revolution and the history of the geologic time scale.

Combines Galen Rowell''s photographs with excerpts from John McPhee''s 1977 book, Coming into the Country (page xi)

Literary account of Alaska and Alaskans.