Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

In April 1992 a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, his decomposed body was found by a moose hunter. How... (more)

The Call of the Wild

by Jack London

In this quintessential adventure story, Jack London takes readers on an arduous journey through the forbidding Alaskan landscape during the gold rush of the 1890s. Buck, a rangy mixed breed used to a comfortable, sun-filled life as a family dog, is stolen by a greedy opportunist and sold to dog traffickers. In no time, Buck finds himself on a team of sled dogs run ragged in the harsh winter of the Klondike. In a... (more)

The Yiddish Policemen's Union

by Michael Chabon

For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and... (more)

Touching Spirit Bear (rack)

by Ben Mikaelsen

Will the attack of the Spirit Bear destroy Cole's life or save his soul? Cole Matthews has been fighting, stealing, and raising hell for years. So his punishment for beating Peter Driscal senseless is harsh. Given a choice between prison and Native American Circle Justice, Cole chooses Circle Justice: He'll spend one year in complete isolation on a remote Alaskan island. In the first days of his banishment, Cole... (more)

The Tenth Circle: A Novel

by Jodi Picoult

Fourteen-year-old Trixie Stone is in love for the first time. She's also the light of her father, Daniel's life -- a straight-A student; a pretty, popular freshman in high school; a girl who's always seen her father as a hero. That is, until her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence. Suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family -- and herself -- seems to be a lie. Could the... (more)

Julie of the Wolves (rack) (Julie of the Wolves)

Julie of the Wolves (rack) (Julie of the Wolves)

by Jean Craighead George

Lost on the Tundra To her small Eskimo village, she is known as Miyax; to her friend in San Francisco, she is Julie. When the village is no longer safe for her, Miyax runs away. But she soon finds herself lost in the Alaskan wilderness, without food, without even a compass to guide her. Slowly she is accepted by a pack of Arctic wolves, Mid she grows to love them as though they were family. With their help, and... (more)

Diamond Willow

by Helen Frost

There’s more to me than most people see. Twelve-year-old Willow would rather blend in than stick out. But she still wants to be seen for who she is. She wants her parents to notice that she is growing up. She wants her best friend to like her better than she likes a certain boy. She wants, more than anything, to mush the dogs out to her grandparents’ house, by herself, with Roxy in the lead. But sometimes... (more)

The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics)

The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics)

by Malvina G. Vogel, Jack London

With an introduction from award winning K.A. Applegate, White Fang is one of London's classic tales of survival and one of his most popular stories. White Fang is part dog, part wolf, and the lone survivor of his family. In his lonely world, he soon learns to follow the law of the North--kill or be killed.

Manhunt

by Janet Evanovich

A woman with a talent for numbers, Alexandra Scott wanted to escape the rat race and go someplace where the men outnumber the women. Trading in her Wall Street job and fancy condo for a rundown cabin in the woods. She's now Alaskan Wilderness Woman. It isn't long before she finds exactly what she's looking for: one sexy pilot named Michael Casey. But this confirmed bachelor has no intentions of getting caught in... (more)

Drop City

by T. Coraghessan Boyle

It is 1970, and a down-at-the-heels California commune devoted to peace, free love, and the simple life has decided to relocate to the last frontier—the unforgiving landscape of interior Alaska—in the ultimate expression of going back to the land. Armed with the spirit of adventure and naïve optimism, the inhabitants of "Drop City" arrive in the wilderness of Alaska only to find their utopia already populated by... (more)

Alaska: A Novel

by James A. Michener

In this sweeping epic of the northernmost American frontier, James A. Michener guides us across Alaska’s fierce terrain, from the long-forgotten past to the bustling technological present, as his characters struggle for survival. The exciting high points of Alaska’s story, from its brutal prehistory, through the nineteenth century and the American acquisition, to its modern status as America’s thriving forty-ninth... (more)

Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival

Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival

by Velma Wallis, Jim Grant

Based on an Athabascan Indian legend passed along for many generations from mothers to daughters of the upper Yukon River Valley in Alaska, this is the suspenseful, shocking, ultimately inspirational tale of two old women abandoned by their tribe during a brutal winter famine. Though these women have been known to complain more than contribute, they now must either survive on their own or die trying. In simple... (more)

Coming into the Country

by John McPhee

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. Readers of McPhee’s earlier books will not be unprepared for his surprising shifts of scene and ordering... (more)

Never Cry Wolf : Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves

Never Cry Wolf : Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves

by Farley Mowat

More than a half-century ago the Canadian Wildlife Service assigned the naturalist Farley Mowat to investigate why wolves were killing arctic caribou. Mowat's account of the summer he lived in the frozen tundra alone-studying the wolf population and developing a deep affection for the wolves (who were of no threat to caribou or man) and for a friendly Inuit tribe known as the Ihalmiut ("People of the Deer")-is a... (more)

Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod

Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod

by Gary Paulsen

Paulsen and his team of dogs endured snowstorms, frostbite, dogfights, moose attacks, sleeplessness, and hallucinations in the relentless push to go on. Map and color photographs.

Terminal Freeze

by Lincoln Child

A breathtaking discovery at the top of the world . . . A terrifying collision between modern science and Native American legend . . . An electrifying new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Lincoln Child. Two hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle lies Alaska’s Federal Wildlife Zone, one of the most remote and inhospitable places on Earth. But for paleoecologist Evan Marshall and a small group... (more)

The Call of the Wild, White Fang and Other Stories

The Call of the Wild, White Fang and Other Stories

by Alex Kershaw, Earle Labor, Jack London

This collection includes The Call of the Wild and its companion novel, White Fang, as well as all of Jack London's famous dog stories--"Batard," "Moon-Face," "Brown Wolf," "That Spot," and "To Build a Fire."

Looking for Alaska

by Peter Jenkins

More than twenty years ago, a disillusioned college graduate named Peter Jenkins set out with his dog Cooper to look for himself and his nation. His memoir of what he found, A Walk Across America , captured the hearts of millions of Americans. Now, Peter is a bit older, married with a family, and his journeys are different than they were. Perhaps he is looking for adventure, perhaps inspiration, perhaps new... (more)

Brian's Winter

by Gary Paulsen

In Hatchet, 13-year-old Brian Robeson learned to survive alone in the Canadian wilderness, armed only with his hatchet. Finally, as millions of readers know, he was rescued at the end of the summer. But what if Brian hadn't been rescued? What if he had been left to face his deadliest enemy--winter? Gary Paulsen raises the stakes for survival in this riveting and inspiring story as one boy confronts the... (more)

Murder on the Iditarod T

by Sue Henry

The winner of Alaska's world-famous Iditarod -- a grueling, eleven-hundred-mile dog sled race across a frigid Arctic wilderness---takes home a $250,000 purse. But this year, the prize is survival. Only the toughest and the most able come to compete in this annual torturous test of endurance, skill, and courage. Now, suddenly and inexplicably, the top Iditarod contestants are dying one by one in bizarre and... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: alaska

by Jon Krakauer

by Jack London

by Michael Chabon

by Ben Mikaelsen

by Jodi Picoult

by Jean Craighead George

by Helen Frost

by Malvina G. Vogel, Jack London

by Janet Evanovich

by T. Coraghessan Boyle

by James A. Michener

by Velma Wallis, Jim Grant

by John McPhee

by Farley Mowat

by Gary Paulsen

by Lincoln Child

by Alex Kershaw, Earle Labor, Jack London

by Peter Jenkins

by Gary Paulsen

by Sue Henry