Alaska

Science writer Henry Fountain says the deadly quake that shook Alaska in 1964 was so loud some thought it was the beginning of World War III. His new book is The Great Quake.

Journalist Michael Carey — former editorial page editor and current columnist for the Anchorage Daily News — discusses Alaska's reaction to Sarah Palin's announcement that she will step down as governor of the state.

Supporters and detractors alike can't seem to get enough of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Anchorage Daily News columnist Michael Carey discusses the woman who promises to bring "a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street" to Washington, D.C.

In One Party Country, journalists Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten explain what they call "The Republican plan for dominance in the 21st century." The Republicans, they argue, are "firmly in the lead when it comes to the science and strategy of attaining power — and keeping it."

The new documentary Grizzly Man by German filmmaker Werner Herzog tells the story of Timothy Treadwell, who lived for 13 years -- and died -- among the bears in Alaska. Treadwell and his girlfriend were found dead in October 2003, killed by the animals he had grown to love so much.

Writer Gary Paulsen is a prolific writer of children's books. He began writing over 30 years ago, when he was coming to terms with his alcoholism. For many years he and his wife lived in poverty in rural Minnesota. This changed when Paulsen won the Newbery Award for children's fiction in 1985 with Dogsong, about running the Iditarod. Paulsen's children's books often deal with adventurous youths who triumph over adversity in the wilderness. This interview first aired Oct. 6, 1992.

McCarriston is the author of several books including "Eva-Mary" which is a collection of poems about the domestic abuse that McCarriston, along with her mother and brother, suffered at the hands of her father. She reads and talks about her poem "Last Frontier," about her relocation to Alaska.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "Disappearance: A Map," by Sheila Nickerson, a meditation on loss. (Doubleday).

Straley just published his crime novel "The Woman Who Married a Bear," about a hard-drinking private eye in Sitka, Alaska who writes haiku, has a failed career, and a wife who has left him. Straley is himself a criminal investigator for the state of Alaska.

Television critic David Bianculli takes a break from talking about his current favorite show to review the season premiere of "Northern Exposure."

When writer Natalie Kusz was six years old, her family moved from Los Angeles to the Alaskan wilderness. That first winter, a neighbor's sled dog attacked Kusz, and tore off part of her face. Kusz's memoir details that event and its effect on the family.

Poet and essayist John Haines. Haines' new book The Stars, The Snow, The Fire, recalls the 25 years he spent homesteading in the Alaskan wilderness. Haines is more than "one of our best nature writers," according to Hayden Carruth of Harpers Magazine. Carruth writes that Haines "knows the ecological crisis ... as a crisis of consciousness, the human mind in ultimate confrontation with itself.