John A. McPhee (born March 8, 1931) is a nonfiction writer who has (as of 2003) written 29 books. He is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker. Many of his books include material originally written for that magazine.
McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the son of the local college basketball coach. McPhee was educated at Princeton University and Cambridge University. His writing career began at Time magazine and led to a long association with The New Yorker beginning in 1965. He has received many literary honors, including the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1999, awarded for Annals of the Former World.
McPhee’s subjects are highly eclectic. He has written pieces on dirigibles, the United States Merchant Marine (Looking for a Ship), farmers markets (Giving Good Weight) the shifting flow of the Mississippi River (The Control of Nature), geology (in several books), as well as a short book entirely on the subject of oranges. McPhee has profiled a number of famous people, including conservationist David Brower and the young Bill Bradley, whom McPhee followed as a senior playing basketball at Princeton University. Some of McPhee's most memorable work describes people out of the limelight: a carver of birch bark canoes, a bush pilot, and a French-speaking wine maker in the Swiss army. Though the underlying subjects of his books are varied, his works almost always have a human interest flavor.
McPhee is also a distinguished nonfiction writing instructor, having taught generations of aspiring undergraduate writers at Princeton University. Twice married, McPhee is the father of four daughters.
Books by John McPhee
Awards
Sir John McPhee was a Premier of Tasmania.
Sir John McPhee was a different person than John McPhee the author.
External links
