Books for Alaskan Cruise

[ScottC4746]

I have a 7 night Alaskan cruise.  Any suggestions for books to download to my Nook?  The first that comes to mind is Mitchner's Alaska.

[lenquixote66]

51 minutes ago, ScottC4746 said:

I have a 7 night Alaskan cruise.  Any suggestions for books to download to my Nook?  The first that comes to mind is Mitchner's Alaska.

You can call the Alaska office of tourism.Our cruise to Alaska in 2008 was fantastic.

[rkacruiser]

1 hour ago, ScottC4746 said:

I have a 7 night Alaskan cruise.  Any suggestions for books to download to my Nook?  The first that comes to mind is Mitchner's Alaska.

 

Mitchner's Alaska is better read prior to leaving for your trip.  Loved the book, but, you will be spending so much time sightseeing, I think trying to read the book during the cruise, the book would be "getting in the way" of the sightseeing.  

 

A good Alaskan tour guide might be helpful for you.  For other things to read, select an author or a type of book you enjoy and download that.  I like Tom Clancy or The Gray Man type books.  

[ldubs]

1 hour ago, ScottC4746 said:

I have a 7 night Alaskan cruise.  Any suggestions for books to download to my Nook?  The first that comes to mind is Mitchner's Alaska.

 

Great book, but you might need a 14 day cruise to finish it!  Another might be Jack London's White Fang and Call of the Wild.  

[donaldsc]

 

My list will be a bit different than most of the others.  

 

Most anything by Dana Stabenow

 

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This Is Chance!: The Shaking of an All-American City, a Voice That Held It Together

Jon Mooallem

3.79

1,289 ratings252 reviews

In the spring of 1964, Anchorage, Alaska, was a modern-day frontier town yearning to be a metropolis--the largest, proudest city in a state that was still brand-new. But just before sundown on Good Friday, the community was jolted by the most powerful earthquake in American history, a catastrophic 9.2 on the Richter Scale. For four and a half minutes, the ground lurched and rolled. Streets cracked open and swallowed buildings whole. And once the shaking stopped, night fell and Anchorage went dark. The city was in disarray and sealed off from the outside world.

Slowly, people switched on their transistor radios and heard a familiar woman's voice explaining what had just happened and what to do next. Genie Chance was a part-time radio reporter and working mother who would play an unlikely role in the wake of the disaster, helping to put her fractured community back together. Her tireless broadcasts over the next three days would transform her into a legendary figure in Alaska and bring her fame worldwide--but only briefly. That Easter weekend in Anchorage, Genie and a cast of endearingly eccentric characters--from a mountaineering psychologist to the local community theater group staging Our Town--were thrown into a jumbled world they could not recognize. Together, they would make a home in it again.

 

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If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name: News From Small Town Alaska

by Heather Lende

Alaska setting: Haines

Published 2006

Heather Lende writes both a social column and obituaries for her Haines, Alaska newspaper. She’s also an NPR commentator and author of several other books about small town Alaska, so she is the right person for this book.

Each chapter of If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name starts with selections from her “Duly Noted” column. It’s followed by an essay about the quirky people and places in her town. It’s all done with kindness and wholesomeness. The stories are kind of an Alaskan version of Prairie Home Companion.

This book left me wanting to go to Haines, meet some of her neighbors, and be part of the community.

 

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The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon.

 

[edinburgher]

I have no idea if they can be downloaded to a Nook or not, but as an alternative to books, I can highly recommend reading some of the POEMS BY ROBERT W SERVICE(The Bard of the Yukon) as several of his poems about the Yukon are well known.

 

Amongst them are The Spell of the Yukon ,the Law of the Yukon, andThe Prospector..  They are not at all heavy going, and his words  describe the beauty and grandeur of the Yukon, together with all that is neither beautiful nor grand for those who tried to make their fortune in this unforgiving land.

 

By now you may be wondering how a Scot is familiar with these great works.? Simple really.

 

We were introduced to his works on the coach section of our White Pass and Yukon excursion by our tour guide,  a US student who did tour guiding in Alaska during his summer breaks.  He had a real passion for the works of Service and for Alaska in general, and read to us some of the poems with great feeling as we were travelling through some of the land being described in them, and his words gave much more meaning to our journey as we looked out  at the landscape around us.  To this day we both remember those readings.

 

I hope some of you reading this will be sufficiently  interested to read some of the poems, many of which should be easily found online.  if you do, and you liked them, please say in the hope of encouraging others to do the same, especially if they have either already visited Alaska or are planning to do so.

 

Thank you for reading this.

Edited July 17, 2022 by edinburgher

[edinburgher]

ScottC4746 An afterthought which came too late to edit into my above post.

 

 Your question is a good one, but "Ask a cruise question" is quite a general forum. Why not repeat your question on the specific ALASKA FORUM where more folks interested in Alaska will read it and possibly generate more replies, which, given the popularity of Alaska cruising,  could be of interest to many many others..

 

 

Edited July 17, 2022 by edinburgher

[ScottC4746]

16 hours ago, ldubs said:

 

Great book, but you might need a 14 day cruise to finish it!  Another might be Jack London's White Fang and Call of the Wild.  

At  over 1000 pages, probably so.  If it is anything like his Hawaii, it seems like the first 10 chapters are about how the islands were formed,  I liked the movie much better.  At least it got on with the story and skipped all the geology lessons.

[donaldsc]

I have tried to read a few of Michener's books although not Alaska.  I find that most of them show a  lack of cultural sensitivity.

 

DON

[wcook]

James Cameron’s Titanic. Great title to read while cruising around icebergs. 

[rkacruiser]

20 minutes ago, wcook said:

James Cameron’s Titanic. Great title to read while cruising around icebergs. 

 

While sailing in New Zealand waters, I was reading a book about the sinking of the Mikhail Lermontov which took place in the area between the North and South Islands.  Almost felt that I ought to have a brown paper cover on the book.