Review: The Bear Almanac

The Bear Almanac: A Comprehensive Guide to the Bears of the World

Gary Brown

Lyons Press, 2024 reprint of 2009 text, 341pp.

This just-reprinted guide to the bears covers every aspect of bruins and their lives. The text is highly readable and the illustrations, charts, and lists are copious and helpful. Brown, a retired NPS ranger who wrote two other bear books and who died in 2022, was a field expert on the topic with few peers. I received a free review copy of this reissued book.

The reader does have to get used to the unusual structure of the book. Most bear books take the eight species and assorted subspecies in order, describing everything about each and moving on to the next. Brown did it the other way. There are sections on bear anatomy, bear behavior, and so on, and for each of the subtopics within these (e.g., teeth, hearing). Brown goes through how they apply to the different species, with asides on things like examples of known navigational feats. This fact-packed but oddly organized section fills half the book. The second half is titled "Bears and the Human World." Brown offers information on bears and human culture, such as Indigenous and modern bear-related ceremonies and festivals, hunting, the bear “medicine” trade, conservation, and how humans can avoid confrontation. Tons of bear trivia make this section enjoyable as well as informative.

On my personal favorite topics, Brown notes the confusion of subspecies but doesn't consider odd reports that may indicate uncatalogued types. (Granted, this is a topic most bear experts don't seem to think worth examination: bear cryptozoology is a matter of very scattered evidence.) On the possible survival of the Colorado grizzly, the book provides a list of sightings and indicates Brown was definitely open to the possibility. 

The book closes with a very good bibliography.

There’s not much the average bear aficionado will have to look elsewhere for, except for discoveries after 2009. While the structure doesn’t lend itself to a casual reading from beginning to end, this is a comprehensive book on bears and the world we share with them. It will occupy a permanent place on my reference shelf.