William J. Lewis, who spoke to an overflow crowd at a book signing at the Tuckerton branch of the Ocean County Library last Wednesday evening, April 13, admits he has a chip on his shoulder when it comes to, of all people, Pulitzer Prize winning author, Princeton professor and lifelong New Jersey resident John McPhee.

One of the prolific writer’s early books was The Pine Barrens, published in 1968. The slim volume, just 176 pages, put a lie to the image many Americans have of New Jersey as being a never-ending interstate that owes its existence to New…