12 October

I think this is the most astonishing thing I've ever read. It's the story of how the US has grappled with the Mississippi River over the past couple of hundred years. It makes Jurassic Park seem like an episode of the Teletubbies. It's long, but nearly every paragraph tells you something more jaw-dropping. None of the habitual ways we think can handle this story. It's way beyond anything fiction could dream up, and it's absolutely true.