Twenty years ago, when John McPhee began his journeys back and forth across the United States, he planned to describe a cross-section of North America at about the fortieth parallel and, in the process, come to an understanding not only of the science but of the style of the geologists he traveled with.

To geologists, rocks are beautiful, roadcuts are windowpanes, and the earth is alive, a work in progress....

Few fish are as beloved, or as obsessed over, as the American shad....

John McPhee's Pulitzer Prize-winning Annals of the Former World takes readers on mind-expanding adventures in geology....

Rising From the Plains creates a fascinating picture of the interdependence of geology, commerce, and culture....

For a person who has not encountered John McPhee's lively writing, The Second John McPhee Reader is the perfect introduction....

For a person who has not encountered John McPhee's lively writing, The Second John McPhee Reader is the perfect introduction....