The Patch

`No one else can take topics as diverse and seemingly dry and make of them such diverting, entertaining and educational literature.' * Library Journal * 'Rich with detail and McPhee's direct style and trademark sense of humour.' * NZ Herald * 'The Patch is evidence of a writer who has been given the freedom to follow his nose and has made the absolute most of this freedom...As at home with profiles of celebrities as he is with science and technology, he has a keen eye for detail and a great facility for the one-liner.' * Saturday Paper * `The most versatile journalist in America.' * New York Times Book Review * `McPhee's sentences are born of patience and attention: he seems to possess a pair of eyes with the swivel, zoom and reach of a peregrine falcon's, and a pair of ears with the recording ability of a dictaphone. He notices almost everything.' * Guardian * `McPhee has created a style-blending detailed reporting with a novelistic sense of narrative-and a standard that have influenced a whole generation of journalists.' * Baltimore Sun * `A bountiful cornucopia of insightful essays that display the wide range of his interests and tastes...McPhee delights in cracking open subjects, both ordinary and esoteric, and making them accessible to the layperson in works that testify to his virtuosity as one of the greatest living American essayists.' * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *