John McPhee, author of the esteemed book The Pine Barrens, was born in Princeton, NJ. He attended Princeton University and Cambridge University. Following graduation, McPhee began writing as a staff member at TIME magazine. He has maintained a strong relationship with the New Yorker and has been a staff writer since 1965. That same year he published his first book, A Sense of Where You Are.

In 1968, McPhee published The Pine Barrens. The book, hailed as a classic and one of the best in its field, details the botanical, cultural, and historical qualities of the Pinelands. Infused with personal stories of his trips through South Jersey and of the people he encountered, The Pine Barrens is still considered the authority on this mysterious region.

Perhaps the best way to explain McPhee's approach is from a snapshot of the text. He wrote, "He asked where I was going, and I said that I had no particular destination, explaining that I was in the pines because I found it hard to believe that so much unbroken forest could still exist so near the big Eastern cities, and I wanted to see it while it was still there."

Within his book, McPhee also gives considerable attention to conservation movements and efforts throughout New Jersey to prevent against the detrimental influences of sprawl coming from Philadelphia and New York City.

Publisher Farrar, Straus, and Girox explain the significance of the book and the Pine Barrens: "In the low center of the state, is a region that has been known since the 17th century as the Pine Barrens. The term refers to the predominant trees i nthe vast forests that cover the area and to the quality of the soils below, which are too sandy and acid to be good for farming. Few people chose to settle there in the 1600s, and a large part of the area has not significantly changed to this day. Although New Jersey has the heaviest population density of any state, huge segments of the pines--as the Pine Barrens are often called--have no people in them at all, and the few towns in the central forest are extremely small. Technically...the Pine Barrens cover 1875 square miles, or about a fourth of the state. On all sides, however, developments of one kind or another have gradually moved in, so that now the central and integral forest is reduced to about a thousand square miles. This area is, nonetheless, much larger than most of the national parks in the US, and is so vast that one has to go there and climb one of its fire towers in order to believe that so much wilderness exists where it does."