Table of Contents

<strong>Table of Contents</strong> is a collection of eight pieces that range from Alaska toNew Jersey describing for example the arrival of telephones in a sma... » 

Table of Contents is a collection of eight pieces that range from Alaska toNew Jersey describing for example the arrival of telephones in a smallvillage near the Arctic Circle and the arrival of wild bears in considerablenumbers in New Jersey swarming in from the Poconos in search of a better lifeRiding the Boom Extension A Textbook Place for Bears. In North ofthe C.P. Line the author introduces his friend John McPhee a bushpilot fishandgame warden in northern Maine who is also a writer. The two men met afterthe flying warden wrote to The New Yorker complaining that someone was usinghis name. Maine also is the milieu of Heirs of General Practice McPheeshighly acclaimed reportvirtually a book in itselfon the new medicalspecialty called family practice. Much of it takes place in the examining roomsof a dozen young physicans in various rural communities where they are seen inthe context of their work with a great many patients of all ages. Tworelatively short pieces revisit the subjects of earlier McPhee books. IcePond demonstrates anew the innovative genius of the physicist Theodore B.Taylor who developed a way of making and using with impressive results in theconservation of the electrical energy. Open Man describes a summer day in NewJersey in the company of Senator Bill Bradley. In Minihydro varioussmallscale entrepreneurs in New York State set up turbines at nineteenthcentury mill sites and sell electricity to power companies. A nice littlecountry waterfall can earn as much as two hundred dollars a year for someonewith such a turbine. And Under the Snow McPhee Goes back into black bearsdens in Pensylvania inwinter where he becomes intoxicated with affection forsome fivepound cubs. They remind him of his daughters. «