Legend of a Suicide

By David Vann. 2010. Harper Perennial. 272 pages. $13.99 softcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.harpercollins.com.

The Sunday Times of London calls David Vann’s Legend of a Suicide “an American classic.” French Critics call it “a masterpiece.” But because of its limited release by a small university press, very few Americans have had the chane to read it. Harper Perennial is proud to publish Legend of a Suicide. This dazzling and critically acclaimed debut collection of semiautobiographical stories, currently a bestseller in France and one of the most talked-about literary titles in Europe, now finally has a chance to reach the US audience it deserves.

Vann’s Legend of a Suicide offers a series of haunting portraits, which illustrate a father-son relationship deteriorating in the shadows of the father’s suicidal tendencies, set against the backdrop of Vann’s Native Alaska wilderness. His descriptions of this wild place have brought review comparisons to Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx, while his depiction of the relationship between father and son have garnered comparisons to Tobias Wolff, Richard Ford and Turgenev. The stories follow Roy Fenn from his birth on an island at the edge of the Bering Sea to his return 30 years later to Ketchikan, where his father took the first steps toward infidelity and despair. In what the Observer calls “the truest memoir and the purest fiction,” Vann tries to understand his father and the origins of ruin.

Vann is a professor at the University of San Francisco. A contributor to Esquire, The Atlantic, Men’s Journal, Outside and National Geographic Adventure, he is the author of a bestselling memoir, A Mile Down: The True Story of a Disastrous Career at Sea, and the forthcoming Last Day On Earth: A Portrait of the NIU Shooter, Steve Kazmierczak.

Alaska (10^th Anniversary Edition)

By Art Wolfe and Nick Jans. 2010. Sasquatch Books. 159 pages. $29.95 hardcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.sasquatchbooks.com.

No other state in the nation compares to Alaska with its rugged landscape and splendor. A decade ago, nature and wildlife photographer Art Wolfe compiled a book of 150 stunning photographs of a landscape few have had the opportunity to witness firsthand. Now, a special 10^th anniversary edition of Alaska recaptures the wonder of what is still the definitive Alaskan photography book.

Cerulean glaciers, bright red sockeye salmon, imposing mountains and breaching whales are just a few of the subjects captured by Wolfe. The book contains six chapters: Mountain, River and Lake, Tundra, Sea and Coast, Forest, and Island.

Art Wolfe as earned an international reputation as a leading nature and landscape photographer. He is the on-air host of the PBS series Art Wolfe’s Travels to the Edge and resides in Seattle, Washington.

Nick Jans is the author of several books about Alaska, including The Grizzly Maze. He lives in Juneau, Alaska.

Tundra: Nature’s Favorite Comic Strip

By Chad Carpenter. 2009. Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC. 248 pages. $16.99 softcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.andrewsmcmeel.com.

Unbeknownst to most, rare and seldom-seen creatures such as talking snowmen, pillow-fighting porcupines and redneck salmon live deep in the Alaskan wilderness. Chad Carpenter’s Alaskan wilderness, that is. These uncanny characters call Carpenter’s comic strip Tundra home, and they can all be found in his strip’s new treasury, Tundra: Nature’s Favorite Comic Strip. 

The “best of” collection of 560 cartoons spans Tundra’s more than 16 years of existence and has all the wackiness readers have come to expect from the strip. Its random hilarity and simple, one-panel style have been charming readers since it debuted in 1991. Tundra includes all the strip’s recurring favorites, such as fairy-tale characters Jack Frost, Paul Bunyan and the dish who ran away with the spoon (whom she later left for a ladle). From germ-phobic scavengers to the mating rituals of balloon animals, readers will find Carpenter’s take on the inhabitants of his far-north home turf now in one collection.

Wiggle-Waggle Woof! Counting Sled Dogs in Alaska

By Chérie B. Stihler. 2009. Sasquatch Books. 32 pages. $10.95 softcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.sasquatchbooks.com.

On your mark… get set… MUSH! It’s racing day for a team of adventurous Alaskan huskies, and the smell of victory is near! Count the dogs’ sniffing noses, prancing paws and bobbing heads as they eagerly await the sound of the starting gun. Do they have what it takes?

Filled with bright, colorful illustrations and a sled-dog glossary, Wiggle-Waggle Woof! will guide parents and children through mushing terminology—new words and phrases such as “swing dogs,” “tug line” and “Iditarod.” From the RATTLE-RATTLE of one dog truck to the JINGLE-JANGLE of seven harnesses, to the FLIP-FLAPPING of ten furry ears, counting has never been this much fun!

A Place of Belonging: Five Founding Women of Fairbanks, Alaska

By Phyllis Demuth Movius. 2009. University of Alaska Press. 120 pages. $17.95 softcover. Available at booksellers nationwide and www.uaf.edu/uapress.

In A Place of Belonging: Five Founding Women of Fairbanks, Alaska, author and historian Phyllis Demuth Movius introduces us to five fascinating women who settled in Fairbanks between 1903 and 1923. Movius’s research and many never-before-published photos bring these pioneering women to life. Their daily lives and personal stories Movius draws from letters, memoirs, club records, oral histories and published writings. The author’s intimate portraits recall the challenge of making the last frontier a home and remind us that these women were active at a time of great social change for women in America.