Reading the North

By Jack MacDonald (Lyons Press, $18.95)

The blurb: Once considered rare, romantic creatures, bears are now as common in some places as raccoons. Some say we should leave them alone. Others argue for responsible hunting. Weighing both sides of the argument, MacDonald examines the history and behavior of three species of bears in North America.

Excerpt: "Many years passed before I returned to Bella Coola, during which I did some occasional reading on the subject of the grizzly bear and began to understand that the 'grizzly bear,' which is scientifically classified as Ursus horribilus, is just a North American version of Ursus arctos, the 'brown bear,' a diversified species that shows up in different models all around the world. When I went to the Moscow Circus as a kid, those clownish Russian bears that rode around on bicycles were essentially grizzly bears. The bears that live in the mountains of Italy and France are also essentially grizzlies, and so was the old bear in short pants that I once saw dancing to a gypsy concertina on a street corner in Macedonia. Genetically, they are all the same animal."

They Only Eat Their Husbands: A Memoir of Alaskan Love, World Travel, and the Power of Running Away

By Cara Lopez Lee (MuseItUp Publishing)

The blurb: After a lover threatened to kill her, Cara Lopez Lee ran away to Alaska, only to become ensnared in a love triangle with two alcoholics. Nine years later, she ran again.

Excerpt: "After nine years in the Last Frontier, I'm running away again.

"My name is Cara Lee, and this journal is the record of two journeys: today, I began the first leg of a trip around the world, alone; today I also began the first leg of a trip into the world within me, the tiny world inside my skull, which is still filled with the boundlessness of Alaska. It has taken me until this moment, as I leave the Last Frontier, to summon the guts, the hindsight, and perhaps most important, the time alone, to reflect on my life here. As I hit the road out of the state, I can finally, clearly see the path I rode in. For me these two journeys have become one: I couldn't dare to travel the earth alone if I hadn't come to Alaska, and I couldn't see Alaska plainly if I didn't get some distance."

Bering Sea Blues: A Crabber's Tale of Fear in the Icy North

By Joe Upton (Epicenter Press, $17.95)

The blurb: A fisherman, journalist and author of seven books about Alaska, Joe Upton's memoir chronicles a winter season on a king crab fishing boat in the Bering Sea.

Excerpt: "The Bering Sea is a bad place, the meanest sea that washes any shore. To the west is Siberia, to the north the Arctic, to the south the North Pacific, and to the east the vast tundra coast of Alaska. All are weather breeders. Calm days are rare. The boundary between the Bering Sea and the North Pacific is the Aleutian Islands, nicknamed 'the Birthplace of the Winds.' Every six hours, hundreds of cubic miles of water force their way through the narrow passes between the islands, resulting in currents that when opposed by the frequent strong winds, create seas big enough to wash forty-foot containers off the decks of 700-foot freighters."

-- Compiled by Matt Sullivan, Anchorage Daily News