This is McPhee’s guide to writing nonfiction. I don’t know. It might be out of fashion to admire such rigor, but I will still argue for it—I will still argue that you should have one hundred conversations with your editor about a word. Does that make me nostalgic? I feel like recently lots of people around me have been saying that we live in a “post-literate world.” I guess, if that’s true, I’m going to stand on the deck of the Titanic. I just think that we should insist that words matter. It’s important that your facts are checked, and sometimes it’s important for a certain formality to be there on the page. And McPhee, here, really makes the argument for careful, correct craft beautifully. He articulates a truth that isn’t faddish or trendy—a kind of truth that doesn’t expire.The Writing Life