{"product_id":"uncommon-carriers-9780865477391","title":"Uncommon Carriers","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is a book about people who drive trucks, captain ships, pilot towboats, drive coal trains, and carry lobsters through the air: people who work in freight transportation. John McPhee rides from Atlanta to Tacoma alongside Don Ainsworth, owner and operator of a sixty-five-foot, five-axle, eighteen-wheel chemical tanker carrying hazmats--in Ainsworth's opinion \"the world's most beautiful truck,\" so highly polished you could part your hair while looking at it. He goes \"out in the sort\" among the machines that process a million packages a day at UPS Air's distribution hub at Louisville International Airport. And (among other trips) he travels up the \"tight-assed\" Illinois River on a towboat pushing a triple string of barges, the overall vessel being \"a good deal longer than the \u003ci\u003eTitanic\u003c\/i\u003e,\" longer even than the \u003ci\u003eQueen Mary 2\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eUncommon Carriers \u003c\/i\u003eis classic work by McPhee, in prose distinguished, as always, by its author's warm humor, keen insight, and rich sense of human character.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn McPhee\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and was educated at Princeton University and Cambridge University. His writing career began at \u003ci\u003eTime \u003c\/i\u003emagazine and led to his long association with \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e, where he has been a staff writer since 1965. Also in 1965, he published his first book, \u003ci\u003eA Sense of Where You Are\u003c\/i\u003e, with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and in the years since, he has written nearly 30 books, including \u003ci\u003eOranges\u003c\/i\u003e (1967), \u003ci\u003eComing into the Country\u003c\/i\u003e (1977), \u003ci\u003eThe Control of Nature\u003c\/i\u003e (1989), \u003ci\u003eThe Founding Fish\u003c\/i\u003e (2002), and \u003ci\u003eSilk Parachute\u003c\/i\u003e (2011). \u003ci\u003eEncounters with the Archdruid\u003c\/i\u003e (1972) and \u003ci\u003eThe Curve of Binding Energy\u003c\/i\u003e (1974) were nominated for National Book Awards in the category of science. McPhee received the Award in Literature from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 1977. In 1999, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for \u003ci\u003eAnnals of the Former World\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50523898937618,"sku":"9780865477391","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_17e5a181-5813-4ca1-92f9-178b62a04f3a.jpg?v=1731170810","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/uncommon-carriers-9780865477391","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}