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Books are perennial favorites among gifts for the holiday season. Whether it’s the latest bestseller, an obscure title on a specialized topic, or anything in between, a book is a gift the recipient will (hopefully) spend a significant amount of time with.
Alaska books are especially popular gifts, and while Fairbanks lacks an independent bookstore, there are options for finding the right titles for those on your shopping list.
Barnes & Noble stores always cater to regional markets, and the Fairbanks store is no exception. A table of Alaska books greets customers as they enter, and additional shelves of northern titles can be found deeper in the store.
Shoppers wishing to buy from local small businesses are not without options either. The Great Alaskan Bowl Company carries a surprisingly large selection of books along with the many gift items found in the store. “All of our books are Alaskan-themed,” said Dan Berriochoa, one of the store managers. “We have children’s books, board books, illustrated Robert Service books, all the way through cookbooks, books on gardening and other outdoor Alaskan-themed topics. Then we have a fairly robust Alaskana section of books about anything from Alaska history to Alaskan fiction, strange stories and graphic novels.”
Berriochoa’s wife, Emily Berriochoa, is the daughter of the owner and the primary manager of the store. For her, offering a selection of books partly fulfills a lifelong dream, she said. “Ever since I was a child I loved the idea of owning a bookstore, and this is kind of my way of fulfilling that little part of my soul.” To that end, she keeps the store’s bookshelf well stocked, and noted that they also carry works by the Cole brothers, coffee table books, Native art volumes, nonfiction, and literary fiction among their titles. “I don’t have the space for more, but I feel like our little pockets of books do exactly what they need to do,” she said.
“We carry books by Alaskan authors,” Erica Moeller, owner of the Roaming Root Cellar, said. “Our mission is to build community connection around local food and gifts.” She said the store stocks a variety of titles.
“We have everything from Alaska cookbooks to foraging books to narratives about people moving up here.” She added that, “about 90% of the books that we carry are on our website.”
Moeller emphasized that while Roaming Root is planning to move into the building formerly occupied by Aurora Animal Hospital after the holidays, for now the shop is still located in Chena Pump Plaza. She said once the store moves to the larger facility, she plans on tripling the amount of books she carries.
Small bookstores generally have knowledgable staffs, an especially helpful thing when shopping for Alaska books. Angela Libal, owner and general manager of Anchorage’s popular Title Wave Books said she and her staff “really enjoy the hunt and helping people find things.”
When people come in asking for suggestions of Alaska titles for gifts, she said, “some go-to books that we’ve been recommending a lot have been ‘Sivulliq: Ancestor’ by Lily Tuzroyluke, and ‘Eagle Drums’ by Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson. We’re still seeing some traction with ‘Alaskan Blonde,’ by James Bartlett. And then for kids, Brooke Hartman is the author of ‘The Littlest Airplane.’ She’s also done ‘Klyde the Kraken Wants a Friend.’”
Title Wave is one of several in-state independent bookshops that will take orders over the phone and have books shipped directly to the gift recipient if need be. They also sell gift cards. Other Alaska bookstores with similar capacities include The Writer’s Block Bookstore and Cafe, also in Anchorage, Fireside Books in Palmer, and Homer Bookstore. Each specializes in Alaska books and can help customers choose the perfect ones for gift giving.
Finally, depending on the person, used books can make for both an affordable gift, and, for the recipient, a wonderful surprise. Forget-Me-Not Books on Gaffney in Fairbanks has several shelves of Alaska books, many of them out of print, and on occasion, some of them on the rare side. If buying for someone with a passion for the state’s literature, it’s worth visiting while out holiday shopping.
So while Fairbanks lacks an independent bookseller, residents still have an abundance of choices for those wishing to give the gift of reading this holiday season.
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