Category Archives: Bookish Thoughts

Maps of fictional worlds

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I’m somewhat of a map geek, I suppose. Just this past weekend, I got separated from my loved ones at a flea market when I stopped at a booth featuring historical maps of California and the West… and must have entered a time portal, because when I looked up, fifteen minutes had gone by and my family was nowhere in sight.

But beyond maps of real-life places, I’m especially fond of maps of the worlds I visit in books. It’s just SO COOL to see the author’s world laid out visually, and I tend to get lost in them. I really do want to know the best way to get from the Shire to Mordor, with a detour to Gondor along the way. And just where is Pentos in relation to Westeros? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Side note: One of my big beefs about reading on my Kindle is how annoying it is to try to flip back and forth to check the map every time a new place is mentioned in a book. I’ll take the “stick a finger in the page” method any day.]

I came across this map today, which puts a whole slew of fictional lands into the same world. Neat, right? So apparently Oz is just north of Middle Earth. Who knew?

Here are a few maps of some of my favorite places to visit:

Alera, from Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series. If you haven’t read these yet, stop whatever you’re doing and read these immediately!

I just did a quick Google search for maps of Westeros, and discovered that every fan and his brother has a map. There are interactive maps, topographical maps, maps with caricatures of the main characters, maps with all the house sigils… you name it, it’s out there. Here’s one that gives the basics of Westeros, although it doesn’t include the lands beyond the sea:

Westeros, from the worlds of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin

Next up, always a classic:

Middle Earth. Again, it seems that there are endless variations of this one available out there on the interwebs.

And for a newer classic:

Fillory, from The Magicians by Lev Grossman

Of course, no round-up of fictional lands would be complete without:

Narnia!

What I want to know now is: Now that I have the map, how do I get there? Do I need a passport? Can I find cheap flights on Orbitz?

What fictional worlds would you love to explore?
 

 

A bookish sort of tribute to Neil Armstrong

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I was sad to hear the news today about the passing of Neil Armstrong, a true American icon and hero. I’ve always been fascinated by the history of the US space program, from childhood — watching the moon landing on our grainy black-and-white TV — through adulthood, with tragedies and triumphs viewed on television and the internet, visits to air and space museums and the Kennedy Space Center, where we gawked at the lunar capsules and launch pads, and of course, since I’m me, with fact, figures, and fictions absorbed through the pages of books.

And so, I thought I’d give an overview of my own collection of space books — some old, some new — as a tribute to a man who inspired us all to look to the stars (and to practice faux moon jumping in our backyards when no one was looking).

 

The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe (1979)

Tom Wolfe’s account of the early development of the US space program, focusing on the Mercury astronauts and what it meant to be the best, is a classic; a combination of history, social commentary, and sharply drawn wit. (I was amused to pull my copy off the shelf for the first time in years and see the hardcover price of $12.95. Ah, those were the days!)

Space by James Michener (1982)

As with all great Michener novels, Space is a heady mix of history and fiction, following the trajectory of space exploration from its post-war inception through the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, climaxing with a fictional Apollo mission to the dark side of the moon. I loved this book’s combination of historical fact and fictional drama, filled with characters of both national stature as well as the supporting players on the home front. It’s been years since I’ve read this book, but I vividly recall the emotional roller coaster that it took me on.

Packing for Mars by Mary Roach (2010)

Mary Roach cracks me up, plain and simple. A science writer with the phrasing and timing of a stand-up comedian, I don’t think there’s a subject out there that Mary Roach couldn’t make hilarious. In Packing for Mars, she examines the day-to-day challenges of sending human beings into space, an environment our bodies are clearly not cut out for. She answers the question on everyone’s mind (just how do astronauts go to the bathroom?), explains the best options for surviving an elevator crash, and crams in a ton of useful knowledge, all the while being incredibly entertaining.

Two more from my to-read shelf, recent additions from various used book bonanzas of the past year:

Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson (2009)

I was so happy to find a copy of this one! From the Booklist review:

Using interviews, NASA oral histories, and declassified CIA material, Nelson has produced a magnificent, very readable account of the steps that led to the success of Apollo 11. In the 40 years since the first moon landing and the 52 years since Sputnik was launched, it isn’t always remembered now what an experiment the Apollo program was, nor that the space race was as much a military as a scientific campaign. The space program was launched using the knowledge of rockets available at the end of World War II and former Third Reich scientists working in both American and Soviet programs. When it came to sending men into orbit and beyond, routines and equipment had to be invented and tested in minute increments. Nelson’s descriptions take us back, showing the assorted teams and how they worked together. We meet the astronauts and find out why they were eager to take on this mission, and we also meet the hypercareful technicians, without whom neither men nor craft would have left the ground. Nelson shows, too, how the technology and the politics of the times interrelated. Leslie Fish, songwriter, summed it up perfectly, “To all the unknown heroes, sing out to every shore / What makes one step a giant leap is all the steps before.” Nelson brightly illuminates those steps.

Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut by Mike Mullane (2006)

After reading Mary Roach’s praise for this memoir, I knew I just had to get a copy. From Amazon:

In 1978, the first group of space shuttle astronauts was introduced to the world — twenty-nine men and six women who would carry NASA through the most tumultuous years of the space shuttle program. Among them was USAF Colonel Mike Mullane, who, in his memoir Riding Rockets,strips the heroic veneer from the astronaut corps and paints them as they are — human.

Mullane’s tales of arrested development among military flyboys working with feminist pioneers and post-doc scientists are sometimes bawdy, often comical, and always entertaining. He vividly portrays every aspect of the astronaut experience, from telling a female technician which urine-collection condom size is a fit to hearing “Taps” played over a friend’s grave. He is also brutally honest in his criticism of a NASA leadership whose bungling would precipitate the Challenger disaster — killing four members of his group. A hilarious, heartfelt story of life in all its fateful uncertainty, Riding Rockets will resonate long after the call of “Wheel stop.”

I owe a great deal of my life-long fascination with the space program to my early memories of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon.

RIP, Neil Armstrong, and thank you.

Coincidence at King’s Cross?

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My son and I started a new book this week as his bedtime read-aloud. We’ve made it through about five chapters so far, and here are some key points:

  • There is a special platform at King’s Cross Station in London which leads to a hidden, magical world
  • Regular humans have no idea this magical world exists
  • Our hero is a nice boy being raised by people who are not his parents
  • He lives in the non-magical world, and doesn’t know that he belongs in the world of magic
  • He is not treated very well: he is considered the kitchen boy, works hard dawn to dusk, goes to a run-down, second-rate school, and sleeps in a cupboard
  • The favorite son of the family is a fat, spoiled boy of about the same age, who has a room overflowing with more toys and gadgets than he can possibly ever use or enjoy
  • The fat boy’s mom speaks to him in baby-talk (“Where does it hurt, my pettikins?”), sees him as sensitive and frail, and gives him everything he wants

Sound familiar?

Psych. This is The Secret of Platform 13, written by Eva Ibbotson, and published in 1994… which, by the way, is about three years prior to the introduction of the Boy Who Lived to the rest of the world.

Coincidence? I’m sure this was all hotly debated when Harry Potter first appeared in 1997 (so I’m a little late to the party). And seeing as I’m only about a third of the way through Platform 13, I’m in no position to state whether the similarities continue. It’s a little hard to believe that two different children’s authors came up with such similar elements within such a short time span without there being… oh, let’s call it cross-pollination.

I had a hard time buying it when the author of a bestselling series of vampire books claims to never have read any other vampire fiction. Really? Do you live in a media-less cave, perhaps? Of course, writers of children’s fiction read other writers’ works, and it’s natural to be influenced by what you’ve read, especially when it’s the good stuff. And as far as I can tell, based on the five chapters I’ve read, The Secret of Platform 13 is indeed the good stuff.

It’ll be interesting to see how the story plays out, and whether the seemingly familiar elements will continue to pop up. Somehow, I doubt that we’ll be seeing a wizarding school, a sport played on broomsticks, or a flying motorbike, but I could be wrong.

Are you there, Judy Blume? It’s me, a grateful reader.

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Judy Blume’s books have never been made into movies. Astonishing, right?

While reading about an upcoming film festival, I stumbled across an article about Judy Blume, whose novel Tiger Eyes will be the first of her works ever to make to it to the big screen. I have no idea why it’s taken so many years… but that’s not what this post is about.

Reading about the movie made me think of the impact Judy Blume’s books had on me and my friends, back when we were awkward, curious pre-adolescents just learning about what life had in store for us. I’ll admit it — this was in the 1970s. (Yes, I’m old! Deal with it.) We were subjected to those awful health-ed movies in school (“It’s Wonderful Being A Girl” — ugh!), which left us all horrified by the thought of the messy indignities soon to be inflicted upon us. Does any word cause more blushing and squirming than the word “puberty”?

And then… like a ray of sunshine… we discovered Judy Blume. Suddenly, we had a new language for what awaited us. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was the book to read when we were pre-teens. As Margaret and her friends struggled with identity, family, religion, and boys, we cheered and cried along with her, and modeled our conversations and expectations after what Margaret and her friends went through. I still have the letters my camp friends and I sent each other that year, full of questions about boys and “did you get IT yet?” We learned about periods, about bra-stuffing, about gossip and its harm, about friendship and being true. Puberty, growing up, popularity — all of it was laid out for us in terms we could understand, and the world became just a bit less scary.

Deenie came along, and taught us about beauty, family pressure, responsibility, and — oh, yeah — masturbation. I can’t think of another book from that time that dealt with the issues quite so frankly, and with such lack of judgement. Deenie came to terms with the good and bad of her own body: touching herself felt good, wearing a back brace for her scoliosis made her feel self-conscious, her good looks didn’t have to determine what she did with her life — girl power, 1970s-style!

And then there was Forever. That book was passed around among the girls in my camp cabin so rapidly, I’m surprised it still had pages left by the end of the summer. Sex! Teens! And it was all okay! This story of first love and first sexual experiences was eye-opening for us. Most of the stories we’d encountered so far were along the lines of cautionary tales: scary teen pregancies, girls getting bad reputations… but Forever was a first love story, where a girl and boy explored themselves and each other, and had a good time doing so. (I don’t remember the characters’ names at all, but I’d bet that everyone who read Forever at that time remembers who Ralph was!).

So reading about Judy Blume after all this time makes me wonder: Do pre-teens still read her books? I’m not talking about her books for younger children, which I know have never gone out of style: Fudge, Freckle-Juice, Sheila the Great, etc. Do girls still read Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret when they’re learning about getting their periods? Is Forever still relevant to teens thinking about exploring their sexuality?

If I had to guess, I’d say probably not. Growing up in the 1970s, there wasn’t all that much to choose from in terms of young adult fiction. I’m not even sure that the “young adult” nomenclature was really even used back then. Contrast that to now, when the young adult market is huge, with shelves upon shelves filled with books that go way beyond the innocence of the books of my youth. The choices are unlimited for young readers today, with novels addressing everything from puberty to pregnancy, divorce to disease, sexuality, gender identity, mental health, and more. It’s fabulous to see the wealth of information out there, the choices available, the avenues for discovery open to youth in transition to adulthood.

So is there still a place for Judy Blume? I hope so. The characters’ experiences might come off as a bit dated, all these years later, but the matter-of-fact approach to growing up and making sense of one’s world can only be a good thing… for those still willing to read something that their mothers read back in the dark ages.

 

Running away to the circus

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In honor of an outing tomorrow with my kiddo to see the current Ringling Brothers extravaganza, I thought I’d do my own brief version of a salute to circus books. Here’s a smattering of a few I’ve read in the last few years:

Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen

This tale of love, memory, and violence, set in a Depression-era travelling circus, features unforgettable characters, and is a real treat for the reader. Perfectly captures the sights, sounds, and smells of the circus, with a plot that grabs hold and doesn’t let go.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I’m among the minority of readers who didn’t love this book. The descriptions of this mysterious, phantasmagorical circus are breathtakingly beautiful at times, but the plot just didn’t come together well enough to sustain the imagery.

Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster

This strange tale of a boy who is taught to fly by a master magician is quite a puzzle. I read it, enjoyed parts, but ultimately didn’t quite know what to make of it.

Last but not least, always a favorite in my house:

If I Ran The Circus by Dr. Seuss

Who doesn’t love this fantastical trip through the backyard circus, as imagined by a boy with a day on his hands and only his own creativity to fill it? My son and I never fail to find fresh details to giggle over, whether it’s the Spotted Atrocious, the Harp-Twanging Snarp, or good old Mr. Sneelock.

The Circus McGurkus! The cream of the cream!
The Circus McGurkus! The Circus Supreme!
The Circus McGurkus! Colossal! Stupendous!
Astounding! Fantastic! Terrific! Tremendous!

So what did I miss? Any other circus-themed fiction to recommend? Add your thoughts below… meanwhile, we’ll be dreaming of high wires, trapezes, and itty bitty clown cars.

Fairies on the brain

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November can’t come soon enough.

For a brief period in my youth, which at the time felt like an eternity, I took piano lessons. These lessons were not successful; the lack of success most likely attributable to my lack of talent or my avoidance of practice time, take your pick.

Each week, I’d show up for my lesson at my teacher’s house and sit on the piano bench, waiting for her to stop chatting with my mother. Those five minutes or so of waiting were always my favorite part of the lesson, because… the wall next to the piano was filled with floor to ceiling bookshelves. Right at eye level was the fairy shelf — my piano teacher had what seemed to me a HUGE collection of the color-coded fairy books. The Blue Fairy Book, the Red Fairy Book… as an adult, I’ve learned that there are twelve volumes in all (including lilac! who knew?), collected and published by Scottish scholar and anthropologist Andrew Lang.

These books fascinated me. The covers were lovely, and I enjoyed just looking at them, perhaps touching the spines with a finger or two. I wasn’t ever actually allowed to take them home with me, but my mother, a full-fledged booklover herself, would take me to the library and help me find whichever pink or blue or rose book of fairies that had caught my eye.

I loved how involved, mysterious, and dark the stories could be. I was fascinated by the contrast to the “prettified” versions of fairy tales that were so much more familiar, thanks to Disney and about a thousand or so picture book versions of pretty princesses, handsome princes, and magical kingdoms. I got a secret thrill from discovering just how gross some of the fairy tales truly could be — I seem to recall people baked into pies and thrown into fires, body parts hacked off, iron spikes (boy, does that sound like a horror movie description or what?).

Perfect for horror fans

To be fair, I must admit that I did love the enchantments and romance of the fairy tales as well, and never stopped rooting for a good Happily Ever After.

While I eventually grew out of my obsession with fairy tales, they’ve always retained a special little corner of my heart. I still enjoy picking up a nicely illustrated collection or reading a new translation.

For now, I won’t even go into all the myriad fairy tale retellings that I’ve read and enjoyed over the years… another topic for another day. I will, however, give a quick shout-out to a collection that I found weird and very entertaining, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, edited by Kate Bernheimer and featuring forty new takes on classic fairy tales, written by an amazing array of authors including Neil Gaiman, Francine Prose, Kelly Link, Joyce Carol Oates, and more.

Perhaps my childhood experiences with fairy tales and my ongoing fascination with them explain why I found the discovery of an upcoming volume quite so exciting. I just happened to stumble across a listing on Amazon for Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version, due out in November… and written by Philip Pullman! New Brothers Grimm! Written by the author of The Golden Compass! Brilliant!

(Excuse all the exclamation points. My, but I am being a tad exuberant about this.)

Can. Not. Wait. My preorder has been placed. I know what I’ll be reading in November. Who else is in?

Look at all the pretty!

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I simply must pass along this piece from Tor showcasing Barnes & Nobles’s new leatherbound classics* series. These are beautiful! Must get many.

*Classics, like beauty, apparently being in the eye of the beholder, this collection of classics includes not only the Brothers Grimm, Arabian Nights, Jane Austen, and Charles Dickens, but also Stephen King, Michael Crichton, and Douglas Adams. Not that I’m complaining.

And here are some of the gorgeous volumes that fill me with book lust:

At $18 a pop (mostly), and considering the heftiness of some of these volumes, I’m not going to be rushing right out to buy them all. But maybe as special treats, here or there? Perhaps I need to start dropping hints now to my various and sundry family members who always tell me “I never know what to buy you” when my birthday rolls around…

Now what?

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The problem with catching up on a series… is eventually, you’re all caught up.

If you’ve followed my blog at all in the last few weeks, you’ll know that my obsession du jour is the Fables series of graphic novels (by Bill Willingham). I’ve been devouring these non-stop, to the exclusion of pretty much everything else on my bookshelves. Last night, I finished volume 17 — which was my goal for the week — and suddenly, I’m done. I’ve preordered volume 18, but it’s not due to be published until next January. It’s going to be a long, cold wait.

If I’m hooked, I’m hooked, and despite knowing that sooner or later the fun will end, there’s no stopping me until I’ve reached the end of whatever series I’m reading.*  Not a problem if the entire series has already been published, as was the case when I read Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series a couple of years ago.

*A major exception to my normal series reading behavior is The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I’d been meaning to read it for years; finally started the series earlier this year, read the first three books and thought they were terrific, took the fourth one off my shelf and placed in prime reading position on my nightstand… and there it still sits. I don’t know why, but I just lost the spark, I guess. I’m sure I’ll return to that world eventually, but for now, I’m just not feeling it.

In 2011, my series obsession was A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin. I read the available five books over the course of a few months, and now I have to wait, like everyone else. If I had been one of his devoted fans waiting six years for the publication of the fifth book, A Dance With Dragons, I might have gotten a bit antsy myself. Not to the extent of the angry bloggers who want the author to “finish the damn book, George!”, but still… (Side note: It seems to me that publicly venting your anger at the author whose work you adore might not be the best display of fan-like behavior. It’s his book! Let the man write at whatever pace works for him. The next book will be amazing, I promise!).

In 2010, there was nothing but Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series for me. I read the seven books in the series straight through, several thousand pages worth. And then came the sad day when I finished Echo in the Bone (cliffhangers galore!), and had to face the fact that there was nothing else to read about Claire and Jamie!

For some of my beloved series, there are spin-offs and side works available. For Fables, there’s a Jack of Fables series, although I never cared that much for the Jack character, so I’ll pass on a series devoted to him. However, I’m sure I will pick up some of the stand-alones to keep me in the Fables world between now and next January.

For A Song of Ice and Fire, I’m afraid it’ll be a long, long time before we see book six, The Winds of Winter. We’re talking years here. No publication date has been announced yet, but it’s a good bet that by the time Winter finally arrives, I’ll have forgotten everything that’s happened already, as well as all of my arcane knowledge of house sigils and bannermen, and will have to do some major re-reads.

Diana Gabaldon is busily working on book eight, Written In My Own Heart’s Blood, and has estimated publication for early 2013, according to the author’s website. In the interim, since finishing Echo, I’ve read the spin-off Lord John series (enjoyed quite a lot, but didn’t love…) as well as the various short stories set in the Outlander world. Diana posts excerpts from her work in progress on a more or less daily basis on Facebook, so at least we faithful followers get regular doses and snippets of the characters we love.

So now what? I suppose it’s all for the best, really. Now that I’m out of Fables, I can start digging through my to-read pile, and plan to enjoy novel after novel, especially those that start and end within the covers of a single volume. Or at least until the next shiny series comes along. I can’t be held responsible for what happens then.

Another series? Spare me!

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Do you remember this terrific Sesame Street song?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnoJwfnzmqA

“Every story has a beginning, middle, and an end…”

Words to live by… except nowadays, when just about every other book I pick up is part of a series. Seriously? Whatever happened to starting and ending a story within the covers of a single book?

It’s frustrating beyond words, especially when you don’t know what you’re getting into from the outset. I remember picking up a copy of The Hunger Games when it first came out, and wondering, as I approached the end, how the author could possibly wrap things up with so few pages left to go. The answer, of course, is that she didn’t. Yes, I’ve since read and loved the entire trilogy, but I wish I’d read the reviews more carefully ahead of time so I wouldn’t have been taken by surprise. Same thing happened to me just a couple of years ago when I read Haters by David Moody. I absolutely had no idea that the story wasn’t complete in one book until I saw those dreaded words on the last page: “to be continued”.

Why so many series, trilogies, sequels? One cynical answer is that there’s more money to be made from three books than one. I especially wonder when I look at the young adult fiction shelves: does every story need so many parts? Or is this an after-effect of the Twilight phenomenon, which proved that teens (and adults) will get hooked on a story and then buy more, more, and more?

And then there are the series that just never seem to end. Charlaine Harris has announced that next year’s Sookie Stackhouse novel will be the last… but in my opinion, this is a series that passed its sell-by date a few years ago. Whether the blame lies with the publisher, the marketing team, the agents, or someone else entirely, it’s hard to see the stretching out of this series as anything other than good business sense. You’d be hard-pressed to claim that these books still have much to offer in terms of plot or character development; in fact, in the most recent few installments, I firmly believe that if the author had cut all the pages devoted to Sookie’s daily beauty routines, we might have been able to condense it all into one decent book instead of three or four mediocre ones.

Even when the writing is excellent and I’m immediately engrossed in the plot, it’s the year or so of waiting in between installments that really drives me nuts. And at my “advanced” age, who knows if I’ll even remember what happened in book one by the time book two comes out?

My new resolution, which I’m trying to keep without too much waffling, is to begin a new series only if I know that the entire series has already been published. A friend had been after me to read Jim Butcher’s Codex Alera series for quite some time, knowing how much I enjoy the Dresden Files books. I resisted and resisted – “I don’t need another series in my life!!” – but when I heard that the sixth and final book had been released, I started from #1 and read all the way through the series, barely coming up for breath in between. And you know what? It was fantastic! I enjoyed the books, and I loved being able to follow the characters along their varied trajectories in a seamless journey, without losing the thread of the plotlines due to the long intervals in the publishing schedule.

The same friend has been urging me to read Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles. I’m sure I’ll love the books… but for now, I’ve declined my friend’s entreaties. My response so far: “Tell me when there’s a publication date for the third book in the trilogy, and then we can talk.”

Not to say that I don’t have series that I faithfully follow and adore. Give me a never-ending supply of Outlander novels by Diana Gabaldon, and I’ll be happy as a clam. (So what if Claire and Jamie are in their 90s? I bet they’ll still be one hot couple!) Likewise, I’ll wait as long as it takes until George R. R. Martin publishes books six and seven in the amazing A Song of Ice and Fire series.

But picking up a new series at this point? I think I’ll pass. Give me a beginning, middle, and an end, all in one tidy volume, and I’m yours.

Tally ho, Alaska bound!

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My lovely daughter, now a college graduate, is about to embark on a year-long service project in Juneau, Alaska. In her honor, let’s talk Alaska books. I’m putting together a list of books, fiction and non-fiction, that are set in Alaska and convey a bit of local flavor, drama, and adventure. Based purely on my own arbitrary set of rules, I’m leaving out travel guides (no Fodor’s or Frommer’s) and straight-up history; anything else goes.

Here’s what I have from my own personal library:

A couple that I’ve read:

Alaska by James Michener. Michener’s historical novels make good doorstops, but they really do  provide an excellent overview of the history of a place, told in a way that’s both informative and engaging. An easy solution for those of us who always choose fiction over non-fiction.

If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska by Heather Lende. A warm-hearted memoir of one woman’s experiences, both introspective and amusing.

A couple still on my to-read shelf:

Tisha: The Story of a Young Teacher in the Alaska Wilderness by Robert Specht and Anne Purdy. According to the blurb on Amazon: “Anne Hobbs is a prim and proper 19-year-old schoolteacher who yearns for adventure. She finds this and much more in a town with the unlikely name of Chicken, located deep in the Alaskan interior. It is 1927 and Chicken is a wild mining community flaming with gold fever. Anne quickly makes friends with many of the townspeople, but is soon ostracized when she not only befriends the local Indians but also falls in love with one.”

The Blue Bear: A True Story of Friendship, Tragedy, and Survival in the Alaskan Wilderness by Lynn Schooler. Again from Amazon: “With a body twisted by adolescent scoliosis and memories of the brutal death of a woman he loved, Lynn Schooler kept the world at arm’s length, drifting through the wilds of Alaska as a commercial fisherman, outdoorsman, and wilderness guide. In 1990 Schooler met Japanese photographer Michio Hoshino and began a profound friendship forged by a love of adventure and cemented by their mutual obsession with finding the elusive glacier bear, an exceedingly rare creature, seldom seen and shrouded in legend. But it was only after Hoshino’s tragic death from a bear attack that Schooler succeeded in photographing the animal — and only then that he was able to complete his journey and find new meaning in his own life.”

Coming Into The Country by John McPhee. Amazon description: “Coming into the Country is an unforgettable account of Alaska and Alaskans. It is a rich tapestry of vivid characters, observed landscapes, and descriptive narrative, in three principal segments that deal, respectively, with a total wilderness, with urban Alaska, and with life in the remoteness of the bush.”

What else? Add your ideas and recommendations in the comments!