A Roomful of Hovings and Other Profiles

More John McPhee to be listed soon…
Second Edition.
Now recognized as a master of the verbal portrait, John McPhee first collected a gallery of his biographical miniatures in 1968. A Roomful of Hoovings contains pieces on:
• Thomas P. F. Hoving, an art historian in and out of politics, New York City’s former Commissioner of Parks and former director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art—a man who has made, and probably will continue to make, an amazing amount of front-page news.
• Euell Theophilus Gibbons, a for-ager, America’s most knowledgeable expert on edible wild plants, author of Stalking the Wild Asparagus, Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop, Stalking the Healthful Herbs, and The Beachcomber’s Handbook. McPhee and Gibbons made a canoe-and-trail trip together, living off the land.
• M.I.T. Fellows in Africa: a report on the successful exportation of fifty-two young Americans-honor graduates of law schools and business schools-who served as fully paid employees of African governments. The focus is on the adventurous experiences in Khartoum, in the desert, in the rain forests-of Carroll W. Brewster, who became, at twenty-eight, editor of the law reports of the Sudan.
• Robert Twynam, the man who grew the grass at Wimbledon, keeper and curator of the world’s best lawn tennis court. Twynam had been at Wimbledon forty-four years when McPhee first met him. He saw tennis players from the point of view of grass.
A man only England could produce.
• Temple Fielding. author of Field-ing’s Tracel Guide to Europe, and the man who, more than any other, has controlled the spray of tourist dollars across Europe over the past thirty years. McPhee has written a guide to Fielding himself and to his personal Europe.
These short stories of a diverse group of men, done in McPhee’s cool and revealing style, make an absolutely ab sorbing book” (Denver Post).