In ‘Colony,’ unexpected terror dwells in a supposedly barren Arctic landscape
Book review: Not so many authors whose imaginations have gone north recognize the ominous potential of summer, with its constant daylight and recurring mist.
Books
In this work of fiction, an Alaska community divides over a proposed open pit mine
Book review: “Lost Mountain” is many things — a love story, a portrait of an isolated community, a mystery, a paean to salmon and lives that surround salmon, a not-very-disguised critique of a megamine project, and an example of eco-fiction.
‘MeatEater’ audiobook will be a collection of close calls in Alaska and beyond
Steven Rinella said the audiobook should have a raw, spontaneous feel because many of the participants were sharing memories they had rarely expressed before.
New account of the first ascent of Denali offers a window on our time
Book review: The trick, if one is to write about the first ascent of Denali’s southern peak, is to make it new. Outdoors writer Patrick Dean has done just in “A Window to Heaven,” casting the climb in new light.
Alaska writer Dan O’Neill, awarded an honorary UAF degree, finds inspiration where science and literature collide
The 70-year-old author said the honor feels validating to someone who never held a traditional job at the university.
New memoir offers a nuanced look back on an unconventional, often harrowing Alaska childhood
Book review: Keema Waterfield survived her childhood and went on to build the kind of life that can give us this remarkably self-aware and forgiving book.
This book’s authors list ‘100 things to do in Alaska before you die.’ Did they get it right?
Book review: These books have been billowing forth for a number of years, attempting to provide readers with a bucket list for their visits to the far corners of the earth. It was only a matter of time before Alaska got featured.
Newest edition of Alaska Quarterly Review is again a showcase of the best, most empathic writing of our time
Review: The current issue of the Alaska Quarterly Review, with 10 short fiction pieces, four narrative essays, poems by 24 poets, and a special feature labeled “memoir as drama,” consistently surprises and challenges.
Nome’s correctional center asked an Alaska author to donate a few books. Now others are pitching in to send boxloads of them.
“I made one post on Facebook and I wasn’t quite ready for the response,” said author Don Rearden, who is helping lead the effort.
Heather Lende, whose memoirs chronicle life in Haines, is named Alaska State Writer Laureate
Lende first gained national recognition for her 2006 book, “If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska,” which chronicled her life in Haines and work writing obituaries for the local newspaper.
‘On Being a Bear’ is an often fascinating meditation on the fraught relationship between people and bears
Book review: Rémy Marion sees bears as reflections of ourselves in some ways, opposite of us in others, and crucial to our understanding of the natural world.
A bear book with both personal and historical perspective
Book review: Do we need yet another book devoted to bears? In the case of Bjorn Dihle’s “A Shape in the Dark,” the answer may be yes.
In collection of gold rush letters, a firsthand look at the thrill and backbreaking disappointment of prospecting in the north
Book review: The letters of Robert Hunter Fitzhugh Jr. (1897-1900) offer insight into daily life for those who risked all, hoping a few years of hard work in the goldfields would lead to a life of leisure and wealth.
New graphic novel ‘Kodi’ is great for young readers, but also a sweet tale for adults
Book review: Jared Cullum’s graphic novel is an homage to Alaska and the Northwest that captures the region marvelously, and then sets childhood imagination at its heart.
Longtime Alaska poet Tom Sexton returns to his mill town roots in a new collection
Book review: Recurring motifs include the Irish, Catholicism, food, baseball, poolhalls, rivers and bridges, and of course the mills that were the center of Lowell life for so many years.
In ‘Unsolaced,’ a writer returns with alarm about the present and future
Book review: After 37 years, Gretel Ehrlich has written a bookend to the well-known and loved classic book “The Solace of Open Spaces.”
Volume about Indigenous Arctic peoples from the British Museum suffers a shortage of Indigenous voices
Book review: “Arctic: Culture and Climate” should have been a vehicle to provide people struggling to be heard a chance to present their stories to a broader public. Instead they’re still getting filtered through a museum.
Prince Harry gives advice to grieving children in new book foreword
Prince Harry wrote the foreword for “Hospital by the Hill,’' by Chris Connaughton, the story of a young person whose mother worked at a hospital and died during the pandemic. It is being given to children who have experienced similar losses.
A return to his boyhood home opens up far more than memory for the author of ‘Northern Light’
Book review: In Kazim Ali’s new work, Alaskan readers will find significant parallels to our history with Indigenous peoples and the generational traumas still present.
The true stories of 12 notorious Alaska murder cases makes for a chilling, but gripping read
Book review: Clearly “Alaska’s Deadly Dozen” could have easily expanded beyond a dozen cases. The ones author Tom Brennan does include border on incredulous but absolutely happened.