A few summers after Johnson signed the act, John McPhee hiked out to Miners Ridge, in Washington State’s Glacier Peak Wilderness, where an enormous copper mine was planned. With him were two men ...

In his newest (after Annals), McPhee leads readers out to the river—pole and lures in hand—to angle for American shad. McPhee knows where the fish are running, so to speak, and he opens with a ...