Reading You Can Sink Your Teeth Into

An outstanding book about much-maligned sharks and a beautifully illustrated book about Labrador retrievers are among the interesting and informative books published recently.

Here are comments about a few:

Pretty and Practical Salmon Files, by Dick Talleur, published by Abenaki, $65. Even if you never fish for Atlantic salmon, you, as a steelhead angler, can benefit by Talleur’s book. Steelhead will take just about any pattern created by fishers who fish for the Atlantics.

Furthermore, his beautiful color pictures depicting various stages in tying can make your tying better. In fact, his book is more about fly tying than it is about files for the legendary Atlantic salmon.

The Life of a Lab, photography by Denver Bryan and text by E. Donnall Thomas Jr., published by Ducks Unlimited and distributed by Willow Creek Press, $29.50. If you love Labrador retrievers, this book is for you.

Labs not only are great hunting dogs. They’re near-perfect family pets. They live to hunt, but they also love their families, a combination that has endeared them to hundreds of thousands of hunters and non-hunters throughout the world.

Bryan, an internationally known photographer, depicts Labs from the time they’re puppies to the twilight years of their lives.

The Shark Almanac, by Thomas Allen, published by The Lyons Press, $35. No other ocean species has been misunderstood as much as sharks. People have killed and still are killing sharks because they fear them and commercial fishermen are slaughtering sharks for their fins. As a result, some sharks are endangered species.

If you’re interested in sharks and want to know all about them, read Allen’s well-researched book. Allen also writes about rays and skates in a book that’s certain to be used by conscientious people who believe sharks should receive more protection before their populations become too low for recovery.

Wilderness Guide, by Mark Harvey, published by Simon & Schuster, $15. If you camp, hike or climb in the backcountry, you won’t find a better bargain than the National Outdoor Leadership School’s revised and updated 268-page guide, first published in 1983.

The guide needed to be updated and revised. Although some basic things, such as knots, use of compasses and maps, and first aid and camping techniques, haven’t changed much the last 16 years, many other things have changed dramatically. Today’s backpacker and wilderness traveler has many new options when he or she shops for clothing, footwear, backpacks, tents, stoves and even GPS devices.

Idaho Blue-Ribbon Fly Fishing Guide, by John Shewey, published by Frank Amato Publications, $24.95. Shewey, who has written several guidebooks, has done a creditable job on his Idaho book. Although, not surprisingly, he hasn’t gone into much detail in the 79 pages, he has provided enough pertinent information for a fly fisher to be prepared when fishing the waters he mentions.

His information on the streams is more useful than the data for lakes.

Little Boats, Big Salmon, by Erv Jensen, published by Three Trees Publishing, $11.95. Erv and his brother, Svend, started commercial fishing from little boats for big salmon in southeast Alaska nearly a half century ago, or back in the so-called “good old days.” What they learned the hard way Erv relates in his well-written, fascinating, readable 208-page book.

And what they learned is as valid today as it was when they fished alongside the men who pioneered techniques for catching chinook salmon. Erv and Sven were among the pioneers of techniques, such as mooching. Today’s salmon fishermen can learn a lot by reading Erv’s book.

Erv says that fishing for big salmon today in Alaska can be as rewarding as it was many years ago. One of the big changes, though, is the size of the fish. There aren’t as many 50-pound-plus chinooks today as when they started fishing.

No Picnic on Mount Kenya, by Felice Benuzzi, published by the Lyons Press, $14.95. This remarkable adventure story by an Italian prisoner of war who escaped from prison only to climb Mount Kenya and then to return voluntarily to the prison was first published in 1953.

The story is one of the strangest to emerge after World War 11. Why would a prisoner of war and two companions he persuaded to accompany him risk their lives to escape the boring confines of a prison to climb a snow-capped peak? Benuzzi’s story has intrigued untold mountaineers and readers of adventure tales for more than 45 years.

After the war, Benuzzi became an ambassador for Italy and continued to climb and write about climbing until his death in 1988.