Day 48: Writing a Book Review without the Book

Source:
Anderson, S. (2017, September 28). The mind of John McPhee. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/magazine/the-mind-of-john-mcphee.html?_r=0

What is Sacred:
I am not as familiar with John McPhee's writing, but based on this article, I need to be. I think what sold me on reading his new book Draft No. 4 is the description by Anderson that in McPhee is writer as craftsman rather than writer as artist. I think the more scientific I can get about teaching writing, the more I will get pieces with intentional voice and craft.

I also appreciate writers that are able to take their research and create intimacy through a complex organizational structure that reveals the workings of a complex mind. Anderson describes it best with his sentence: "McPhee has built his career on such small detonations of knowledge."

I guess what is sacred, then, is the ability to talk about craft and the ability to know about small topics in very deep and layered ways and write about those layers through organization that works as both metaphor and theme.

Connection:
I have this listed under aesthetics on my Excel spreadsheet which basically means I like the topic and I like the way the writer wrote about the topic. It could possibly be used for a mentor text but it is a little nebulous in my mind except for the fact that I liked reading it.

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