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Roomful of Hovings
Published by Farrar; Straus & Giroux
Paperback: 0-374-51501-8; $11.00US
Now recognized as a master of the verbal portrait,
John McPhee first collected this gallery of his biographical miniatures
in 1968. These short stories of a diverse group of people, done in McPhee's
cool and revealing style, make "an absolutely absorbing book" (Denver
Post).
Reviews
McPhee writes as well as anyone in America. His
prose is simple and lyrical, his images are sharply focused. And here are
five profiles that prove it. His subjects: Thomas P. F. Hoving, art historian,
sometime political influence, former floorwalker; the late Euell Gibbons,
famous forager of edible wild plants and author of Stalking the Wild
Asparagus; Carroll Brewster of the intrepid team of M. I. T. Fellows,
in the Sudan; Robert Twynam, tender of the lawn at Wimbledon; and Temple
Fielding, mercurial and influential author of the popular travel guides
to Europe. --Clarence Peterson, Chicago Tribune
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