100 books like Beyond the Bear

Here’s my confession: I hated Chris McCandless by the time I finished this book. I hated his cockiness and lack of respect for the power of the wilderness.

But you know what I give him credit for? His ability to leave his life of privilege and the courage to go out into the world and forge his own destiny. He did what he thought was best for him despite the pushback he received from his friends and family.

I think I hated him so much because I wanted him to succeed, and he doomed himself through his own hubris. 

No list like this would be complete without a great mountaineering book.

The story of North America’s deadliest climbing disaster, in 1967, serves as a reminder how quickly even well-planned adventure can turn into tragedy. Hall, the five-year-old son of the park's superintendent at the time of the events he describes, puts you squarely into the boots and onto the crampons of these mountaineers.

Having climbed Denali myself once, with a buddy, under atrocious conditions, this book again brought home the fact that small decisions can have unforseen, lethal consequences, especially on a mountain that brews its own weather. I have seen snow and clouds roll in and blanket the view within thirty minutes, up there in the “death zone.”   

Faith of Cranes leans more on the inspiration than being an outright adventure, but an adventure it is. It’s a quiet, lilting, beautifully written memoir about home and community, and a former wildlife biologist’s attempt to recover his own sense of hope amidst the ravages of climate change. His story is adeptly tied to the history and lifecycle of the sandhill cranes he chronicles throughout the book, as well as his community, its natural beauty and the eccentric neighbors he shares it with. Ultimately, with the birth of his daughter, his hope is restored, at least to a point.  

Though this book is 17 years old, it is still a compelling memoir about a young man’s journey to find his “place” in Alaska, and the exploits he has along the way. Heacox describes in elegant detail his paddling adventures, encounters with wildlife, his work as a ranger, and his struggle with humanity and how we are all, including himself, tampering with the natural world we love. A wonderful personal adventure interspersed with rich characters, history, and internal conflict.

For five months, the wildlife biologist and his filmmaker wife, on skis and on foot, shadowed the Porcupine caribou herd’s spring migration from boreal forest wintering grounds to their nursery on Alaska’s tussock-studded tundra—“North America’s Serengeti,” or, to the Gwich’in Indians, who depend on the animals for subsistence and spiritual nourishment, “The Place Where Life Begins.”

The couple’s journey impresses me as a long-distance feat, and with its poetic rendering, but foremost with its conservation angle. They raised awareness of fossil fuel extraction that threatens lifeways, both the Gwich’in’s and the caribou’s; after their trip, they ventured to Washington D.C. to lobby for the wildlife refuge’s protection.

The book’s highlight for me is the couple tentbound, whispering—out of consideration—amidst thousands of birthing caribou cows.

Hoping to gain perspective on his troubled marriage, the deaths of friends, and the vagaries of middle age, charter-boat captain Lynn Schooler commits to a walkabout along the “Lost Coast,” one of Southeast Alaska’s wildest stretches.

What begins as a voyage of introspection soon becomes a grueling march—through pelting rain, jungle-like brush, and ankle-busting boulder fields—that climaxes in a long face-off with a rogue bear and the terrifying crossing of a meltwater torrent.

Just getting to this trail-less wilderness in Glacier Bay National Park tests Schooler's mettle; waves pound his small vessel, and boat-swallowing currents threaten his entry into Lituya Bay. On my Brooks Range traverse, I too was moving steadily toward home (in my case, Nome) a knowledge that powered each step and oar stroke.

This is a small gem of a book that I’ve had for years and have read multiple times.

It’s a retelling of an Athabaskan legend that has been passed from mother to daughter for generations on the upper Yukon River in Alaska. The old women of the title belonged to a large migratory tribe that was slowly starving to death in a bitter Arctic winter. The chief and his male council determined the tribe had a better chance of survival if it left the useless old women behind to die.

What happened next? Read the book. I know you’ll love it as much as I do. It’s a triumphant story of the courage of women set against the inadequate leadership of men.

There’s something special about Kate Bowler. At 35, diagnosed with cancer, she started questioning our culture of positivity that emphasizes can-do achievement.

Her insights are beautiful, and her buoyant humor is icing on the cake. I feel like we’re soul sisters, my friend Kate and me (we’ve never met). Her words resonate with my belief that life is a mix of beauty and bummers, and sometimes there is even beauty within the bummers. I believe we should show up for life and appreciate all of it. So, I’m drawn to Kate Bowler’s account of how her hard-won uncertainty has shifted her perspective.

Reading Terry Tempest Williams’ book brought me an intimate awareness of the magical beauty of The Great Salt Lake ecosystem and its abundant, fascinating bird life, while at the same time, the book educated me about the long-term impacts on both wildlife and human life from all who lived downwind of the 1950’s Western nuclear weapons testing and development.

I loved the themes of wild bird habitats and migratory bird refuges that ran throughout the book, and I truly felt the emotive connection that Williams created between wild birds and human lives.

The honesty about increased cancer rates and the ultimate death of her mother added a poignant, bittersweet element that brought me to emotional tears as well.

This book at times feels like poetry and written with such profundity.

Grappling with deep physical pain, Jen Soriano, a daughter of a neurosurgeon, comes upon a hard truth about the origins of her physical pain; a history of generational trauma and her family’s absorption of a painful history of colonization of the Phillipines.

This poignant memoir helped me understand, at a personal level, how the body starts to give up when we carry the emotional wounds of the past, how neurodivergence intersects with historical trauma, and reminds us that freedom from pain is indeed possible.

As a trauma psychologist, it was both humbling and enlightening to receive the author’s personal accounts of intergenerational trauma and intergenerational healing.