This has some good tales, including a few about Don Sheldon.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Q24Xk-hhgAcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0

Antonovs Over the Artic by Robert Mads Anderson

Flying...Off the Pavement (Manual for the amateur bush pilot) by Link Grindle

Winging It by Jack Jefford



Read The Jefford book before but found a nice copy for $5

I'll throw a few in the ring.

"Guppy Pilot," by Roger G. Smith. A memoir of Naval Aviation from period of time between Korea and Vietnam. A good read.

"Climb for the Evening Star," by Tom Mayer. Tom Mayer writes about flying and his Staggerwing in this book from 1972. Good stories about flying his Big Yellow Bird in backcountry Mexico and around the Southwest US, flying the last Vultee V-1A, etc.. Well worth it.

"Staggerwing," by Robert T. Smith. Everything you ever wanted to know about the airplane, and a listing of every single ship built. Worth the money for the easychair reading factor alone. Look online for a inexpensive copy.


Dave

Another addition to the library. I like Gerry Bruder's style of writing. This is the second book I've bought by him, after "Northern Flights."

Just read Alaska Justice, flying state trooper during pipeline days. Historical fiction but a pretty good read.

Cloud Dancer's books aren't mentioned?! Alaska Sky Chronicles are in my top 5 books now. Love them, laughed my ass off in the first 2. The 3rd is more somber and the 4th is on my iPad waiting to be read. He's the real deal and doesn't brag, if anything he's hard on himself at times. A must read for people especially those who haven't been to AK, gives you a feel for every day aviation life.

Join up with Cloudy on Facebook. Go to the "CloudDancer's Alaskan Chronicles" page. He's shooting for 500 fans by the year's end.

Gump

#302 here! great stuff!

Bob Adkins' book Panhandle Pilot arrived last week. Bob spent a career in southeast Alaska as an educator, but in the summers he flew for an air taxi as a commercial pilot. His aviation experiences, starting with the experience of learning to fly, are chronicled in this book in a style that is obviously his very own. From the moment he gets thrashed by wake turbulence in his very first solo flight, Bob relates the experience and adventure of learning to fly, using an airplane as an aerial SUV in Alaska, dealing with weather conditions, dealing with customers and passengers, and watching other aviators make different decisions...not always good ones... I love this book. It opens a window into the experience of fly-for-hire in Alaska in a way that most do not, in a compelling narrative honestly told. He provides a beautiful explanation of some of the things that people who don't fly in Alaska have a hard time understanding...like why VFR flight under a low layer in Alaska is so common as opposed to spending the time in the clouds on IFR. I've never been to southeast Alaska, but I feel like a have a good understanding of the area and the unique aviation challenges it presents just from reading Bob's tales.

Although I've never been to SE Alaska, I have met Bob a while back. I had no idea he was writing a book, and didn't even realize he was a pilot. Now I'm dying to go see him to do some hangar flying with somebody who's seen a lot more of the aviation world than I have... Bob's book is available at Barnes and Noble or directly from Bob, still living in Haines, Alaska where many of the story segments occur, at:

http://www.bobadkinsphotography.com/panhandle-pilot

"Rescue of Streetcar 304: A Navy Pilot's Forty Hours on the Run in Laos" is a fantastic read

"Hauling Checks: a novel" is kind of funny

"Forever Flying" Bob Hoover
"Flight of Passage" is a classic

Just finished GOING SOLO, a biography by Roald Dahl. I found it impossible to put down. The first half is about living in East Africa in the years prior to WWII. The second half is about joining the RAF and getting thrown into the thick of the action as a green fighter pilot. The writing is great, and the descriptions are riveting.

-DP

The Dog Stars

This is a novel set in the future after the apocalypse (pandemic that wiped out 98%). The basis is the main character is living at the airport (in Colorado) where he kept his plane..a '56 Cessna 182. After a period of 10 years or so he decides to follow a radio call he heard some time before. Loads the plane with fuel and eventually passes the point where he can't make it back.

Slow start but by mid way I couldn't put it down. Very introspective and is more a narrative. No quotation marks so a bit hard to follow at times. Amazingly well written...makes you think.

Some pretty good action with the "marauders"....no prisoners taken.

Highly recommend.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Dog-Stars-Pet ... +dog+stars

Flying, a Little over Stall Speed
Bud Johnson

Bud Johnson's life of flying. He is not a great writer but it is a fair to good read anyway. It will hold more interest by those who financed their early flying with aerial hunting and other enterprise.

Just finished "The Dog Stars". It was an expensive read 'cause it only lasted two nights. I pretty much poured through it. It's a little rough in the begining and has a unique, and slightly odd, cadence but is an extremely good book. Some of it is fairly powerful stuff. The aviation aspect is solid too. I looked up the tail number the author references and it's in the data base just as advertised. Definitely authentic. Hope he writes another in this vein. Thanks for the recomendation!

Flyingzebra thanks....I found myself thinking about the Dog Stars several weeks after finishing...truly makes you think. I also gave it to my wife to read and she enjoyed it as well even though not a pilot. Like you said, the style is unusual and takes a bit of getting used to. I read a lot and this one really hit me.

Great. A yarn about a guy with a '56 Cessna and his dog as co-pilot. Kindle here I come.

Gump

"Free Flight" by Douglas Terman. 1980 fiction

Just a good read about an ex Air Force officer living in Vermont after a nuke strike by the Russkies. They are now running the show, and he at one point breaks out a motor glider he has hidden away, gets it airworthy and makes a break for it. Absolutely authentic details on the flying, good plot and well written.

A few good books missing, that I can think of off the top of my head, three by Jack Schnofield; Coast Dogs Don't lie, No numbered runways- Floatplane Pioneers of the west coast, Flights of a Coast Dog. These books are very well put together with good photos.
One from vietnam war of an Australian pilot in the US Army, who was flying bird dogs.
I will have to see if i can find any others. I know my shopping list has just grown by a couple

BM

I'm halfway through The Map of My Dead Pilots. It's a memoir by Colleen Mondor of her years running flight ops for a bush commuter in Fairbanks in the late '90s. The only reason I haven't finished it in one sitting is I keep getting interrupted. Similar territory, literally and figuratively, as Cloudancer's Alaska Chronicles (save for any mention of breasticles). Very well written, and very stirring. The stories are all true, with only some names changed for privacy, etc. The author has a website with links to all the corresponding NTSB reports. Quite possibly some of these stories are a little close to home for a few of us. She treats them all respectfully and honorably, IMHO.
-DP

A great book that was out of print for a long time but is now available as a Kindle edition is "No Parachutes" by Arthur Gould. It is a story of WWI flying and pilots being denied parachutes on the grounds that they would not fight as hard if they could bail out. Most of the WWI flight fatalities were from pilot error. Those planes were sensitive, and pilots were sent into combat with only 20 hours under their belts. It is a sobering, and engrossing read.

Another one I loved was "Chasing the Glory" by Michael Parfit. It tells the story of a modern pilot retracing the aviation marketing tour Lindberg did after his solo transatlantic crossing. It is a wonderful story about small town airports all across America and the temporary life of an aviation wanderer.

"Lincoln Beachey, the Man Who Owned The Sky" by Frank Marrero is another good read. It is the biography of the first pilot to do a loop in an airplane in the US. He did acro in a Curtis pusher biplane, sitting out in the open in front of the gnome rotary engine. Balls like grapefruit is all I have to say about that! Beachey died in 1915 in a crash of his new monoplane while performing at the San Francisco Exposition. He was the most famous pilot at the time, but after his death, a new crop of aviation heroes returning from WWI took the limelight and Beachey was forgotton.

"Flight of Passage" by Rinker Buck and all of the Gann books mentioned by previous posters are also fabulous recommendations.