SARAH
How a Hockey Mom
Turned Alaska's Political
Establishment Upside Down
by Kaylene Johnson

Sarah Palin, then 39, a hockey mom and former mayor of Wasilla, thought her dream of making a difference in the male-dominated realm of Alaska politics was over in 2004 when she clashed with the state chairman of her Republican party and fell out of favor with Gov. Frank Murkowski over issues related to ethics and openness in government.

Yet, the former high school basketball star and one-time TV journalist could not shake the feeling that she was destined for something bigger. Two years later, she became a long-shot candidate for governor, promising reform.

Then, fate intervened. Her populist message suddenly became front-page news when a major political scandal rocked Alaska politics. Alaskans began listening to her. And they liked what they heard.

Read first chapter

"Sarah Palin is a politician of eye-popping integrity." -- Fox News Network

"Wildly popular, she's more than just a pretty face." -- Alaska magazine

"There's an undeniable national buzz surrounding the first-term governor, seen by many Republicans as a fresh, new face to represent the party's future."-- Chicago Tribune

Buy now

From modest beginnings in Queens, New York, Dave Rose became the first director of the Alaska Permanent Fund, the multi-billion-dollar savings account created by voters after discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay. Rose's insider account, as told to award-winning journalist and author Charles Wohlforth, reveals the inner workings of a unique institution that converts earnings from investment of oil wealth into annual dividends for every Alaskans.

"This is the warm, funny, and inspiring story of Dave Rose, who followed the American Dream and was living proof that smarts, courage, and integrity can be found in public service.” --Tony Knowles, Governor of Alaska, 1994-2002

"This fascinating book tells how Alaska, suddenly having oil riches beyond its imagination, protected the money from free-spending politicians and shrewdly invested it in what became a $40 billion fund paying annual dividends to its citizens.” --John Strohmeyer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Extreme Conditions: Big Oil and the Transformation of Alaska

April release
Buy hardbound First Edition
Buy trade paperback edition

Pacific Northwest Booksellers Assn. Award winner
ALASKA BLUES
A Story of Freedom, Risk, and Living Your Dream
by Joe Upton

For seven months, Joe Upton steered his thirty-foot boat, the Doreen, through the open channels and narrow, twisting passageways of Southeast Alaska, living the life of an itinerant commercial fisherman far from home. This is his account of that season- the lonely hours at sea as well as the close community of the fishing fleet; the sudden, violent storms and glorious days of sun; the difficult, frenzied work and quiet moments of contemplation.

Alaska Blues is a powerful evocation of time and place-of a people and their way of life, and haunting, beautiful shores that draw them back, season after season.

"A beautifully written book about commercial fishing in coastal waters. Joe Upton delivers both the reality and romance of Southeast Alaska." -- David Guterson, author of Snow Falling on Cedars.

"One of the most unique sea sagas ever written…wonderfully awash in salt air and water." -- Ernest K. Gann, author of The High and the Mighty

Buy now

A journalist-poet and one of Alaska's premier nature photographers have teamed up to create a delightful book for children and adults combining whimsical verse in the tradition of Ogden Nash with rare and heart-warming photographs of wild animals and birds with their offspring.

Tom Walker's unforgettable images of the wild critters at "work" and "play" and Tim Jones' witty verse will delight all who venture into these pages.

Buy now.

Building the Alaska Log Home
Photos & text by Tom Walker

From discussion of tools and site selection to foundation work and bush cabin etiquette, this book includes everything you need to build with logs. The detailed drawings and insightful text in which the author explains every step clearly and concisely take you from standing timber to the finished home.

"This book on traditional hand-hewn log construction has a warm, friendly text and 192 pages of full-color photos of work at some amazing home sites." -- Washington Post

Buy now.

Along a thousand-mile chain of treeless and windswept islands, Unalaska is perched at the end of the world, or, as some prefer to say, the beginning. In 1964, Ray Hudson, 22, landed in Unalaska village with a brand-new college degree, eager to teach. The Aleuts had seen many outsiders who had come but seldom stayed more than a year.

Yet Hudson was no short-timer. Captivated by Unalaska and the history and traditions of its enduring people, he stayed. As the years passed-one, then five, ten, then twenty-he was embraced by his Aleut neighbors, sharing their celebrations and tragedies, teaching their children, exploring their language, and, much to their surprise, learning their delicate art of grass basketry. Ray Hudson's intimate memoir weaves together landscape and language, storytelling and silence, ancient mythology and day-to-day village life. Ultimately he pays homage to the people he came to teach, and who, in the end, were his teachers.

"One of Alaska's 67 best books"-Alaska Historical Society

June release
Reserve trade paperback edition.

In 1946, young Claire Fejes was a painter and sculptor in New York City. She held the unconventional view that her career was as important as her husband's. But the custom was "whither thou goest, I will go," so Claire went-to Fairbanks, last stop on the Alaska Railroad, in the heart of the immense northern territory, where Joe Fejes intended to mine for gold.

In her refreshingly candid memoir, Fejes tells of a remote outpost where a hardy breed of Alaskans overcomes loneliness and of her own soul-aching artistic and cultural isolation. She describes characters such as Eva McGown, a one-woman social-service agency who wears powerful violet perfume and speaks with a sweet Irish brogue; and Fabian Carey, a trapper who loves the wilderness as fervently as he does opera, literature, and art. Like her vivid paintings, the author portrays the men and women for whom survival and self-sufficiency are foremost in postwar Alaska.

Buy now.

KAY FANNING'S
ALASKA STORY
Kay Fanning & Katherine Field Stephen

"Kay Fanning was the Joan of Arc of journalism."-Jay Hammond, former governor of Alaska

Kay Fanning, 38, an ex-debutante once called "the Grace Kelly of Chicago," loads her three children into a battered station wagon and heads north to Alaska in 1965 after her divorce. She is looking for a new life. She finds it at the Anchorage Daily News, a morning newspaper struggling against the powerful Anchorage Times, voice of the establishment. She and her new husband buy the News, ignoring predictions that the paper won't survive. Kay explains later: "Profit is not the purpose of the press…the free, unfettered flow of ideas is," Public interest became the paper's specialty.

Hardbound First Edition
Trade paperback edition

Many have dreamed about living a self-reliant life in the wilderness. Richard Proenneke lived his dreams. He found a place, built a cabin, and stayed to become part of the land, recording a simple account of his day-to-day exploration and activities. "

"One Man's Wilderness is the best modern piece of prose about Alaska, the one that gives the truest picture of what living in the bush today is like for the lone individual."-Anchorage Daily News

Buy now

THE COASTAL
COMPANION
The Inside Passage
Cruise Guide
Joe Upton

Explore the dramatic Northwest coast and the Inside Passage, mile by mile, with veteran traveler Joe Upton, author of the award-winning "Alaska Blues" and "Journeys Through the Inside Passage."

This is a rail-side guide keyed to a unique milemaker system for easier orientation among these complex waterways. Included are stories, photographs, and an elaborate fold-out map that is the best available to cruise ship passengers headed north.

The guide include information about birds, boats, fish and whales, ports, art, and other features of the Inside Passage, B.C. waters, and Puget Sound.

Buy now.

Murder at 40 Below is a collection of stories about ten of Alaska's most notorious murder cases drawn from interviews with investigators, police files, eyewitness reports, and newspaper archives.

You will be shocked and fascinated by these accounts of failed dreams, schemes that turned violent, greed, madness, and treachery.

Author Tom Brennan is an editor and columnist for the Anchorage Times who broke into journalism on the police beat.

Buy now.

HAUNTED ALASKA
Ghost Stories
from the Far North
Ron Wendt

They are watching us, these ghosts of the North.

They book breakfast, play cards, mine for gold, turn on radios, and play the piano. A logger sees a ghostly Model T drive through his truck. The smell of tobacco wafts through a room where no one is smoking

Haunted Alaska is a collection of ghost stories that will make the hair rise on the back of your neck.

Buy now.

TWO OLD WOMEN
An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival

Western States Book
Award, 1993 winner

Pacific Northwest Booksellers
Association Award, 1994 winner

Translated into 18 languages
1.4 million copies sold worldwide

Buy now

Find out more about
author Velma Wallis.

BIRD GIRL &
THE MAN WHO
FOLLOWED THE SUN

"A wonderful read. Wallis's writing is simple yet rich . . . The story delivers a message of overcoming hardship, of being true to yourself even when it is the most difficult thing to do."

"Wallis's taut, visual prose brings vibrant new life to these ancient stories. "

RAISING OURSELVES
A Gwich'in Coming of Age Story from the Yukon River

American Book Award, 2003 winner

"A brave and tender memoir about hope and survival…"

Show me more titles by and
about Alaska's Native People

   Order books
from a live person:
800-950-6663
24 hours a day

Questions?
Email us