22 Alaska books our reviewers recommend for when you’re hunkered down
From “Raven’s Gift” to “Shadows on the Koyukuk," here are David James and Nancy Lord’s top picks.
Books
Something to read while hunkering down: This political thriller set in a familiar Juneau
Book review: “Rinn’s Crossing” is a political thriller, mystery, procedural, environmental treatise, cultural commentary, morality tale and romance.
In collection of hunting tales, a glimpse of a different Kodiak
Book review: “Vanished: Bear Trails” is Darrell Farmen’s account of his experiences in a half-century of hunts. Despite never having felt the urge to go bear hunting, this reviewer enjoyed it.
New Straley novel returns to Cold Storage, Alaska, and a post-war future
Book review: In “What is Time to a Pig?” the year is 2027, “seven years after the U.S. president’s war with North Korea, and the whole world had gone a little crazy.”
20 women who were ‘Born to Fly’ — and opened the skies for all
Book review: Steve Sheinkin’s book is both a history of the Women’s Transcontinental Air Derby in 1929 and of how the women who participated in it broke technological barriers in the sky and social barriers on the ground.
New book explores the hidden world of the fabled yet enigmatic fox
Book review: Mammal ecologist Adele Brand explores fox diets, reproductive patterns, vocalizations, social interactions, involvement with other animals and much more.
5 things I learned from binge-reading a 50-book crime series
When you spend hours a day reading police procedurals, you start thinking like a cop, or at least how I imagine a cop thinks. I began paying more attention to details.
Adventurer Roman Dial recounts search for his missing son in a fiercely gripping memoir
Book review: In “The Adventurer’s Son," Dial’s seamless writing takes us though searches in the jungle, bureaucratic tangles, surprise friendships, illegal poaching and mining, and tips and dead ends.
Spot-on historical novel imagines a 1924 quest to the Shumagin Islands
Book review: “Steller’s Orchid” is a perfect example of literature that can entertain while also teaching about place, history and the human heart.
Best-selling author of ‘cozy’ mysteries sets new series in small-town Alaska
Book review: Quirky characters, wildlife encounters, a friendly park ranger — it’s all here in “Thin Ice." But Paige Shelton generally avoids the worst clichés about Alaska and Alaskans.
‘The Salmon Way’ is a breezy, enjoyable jaunt through the Alaska state of mind
Amy Gulick, a veteran outdoors and travel writer, offers a peek into the cultural role salmon play in Alaska, and how the lives of humans and fish are intertwined.
How one man’s passion for fly-fishing led to protecting Russian salmon rivers
Book review: “Stronghold” is thestory of one man, Guido Rahr, responsible for initiating and advancing the stronghold concept in the North Pacific, particularly on Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.
In ‘Heart of the World,' a legendary scientist and outdoorsman confronts a fatal diagnosis
Book review: Ned Rozell’s book follows the story of Keith Echelmeyer, a UAF professor of geophysics, climber and backcountry maniac who showed through his death how to live.
Our book reviewers’ favorite reads of 2019
From poetry to fiction and true crime, these are the books that left the deepest impressions on ADN reviewers David James and Nancy Lord this year.
In Greenland’s ice, the world’s past, present and future
Book review: The timing could not be better for publication of “The Ice at the End of the World,” a comprehensive examination of European exploration and discovery in Greenland by historian and science journalist Jon Gertner.
Poet and naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield turns her vision south
Book review: Bradfield challenges not just the traditions of travel writing and our ideas of the place we know as Antarctica, but the forms and uses of poetry.
How clairvoyants and spiritual fads followed 19th century British Arctic expeditions
Book review: For diehards beset by Franklin Fever, “The Spectral Arctic” is yet another book that should be added to the list.
Launching a book on Alaska food, Julia O’Malley talks food trends and the surprising beauty of a Jell-O salad
“The Whale and the Cupcake: Stories of Subsistence, Longing, and Community in Alaska" is available now. O’Malley will sign copies at a release party Friday at the Anchorage Museum.
Scientific method meets 'A Wilder Time,’ in tales drawn from Greenland’s ice sheet
Book review: “A Wilder Time” is largely about the process of science — how it is to have a theory and proceed to test it, how science is always questioning, always re-evaluating and revising what we know about life.
5 Alaska children’s books perfect for gifting this holiday season
Those looking for gifts for kids can find some fine children’s books that take readers all across the Last Frontier.