Shelf Life

One of the last surviving authentic handcarts, slightly older than those used in the 1856 expedition, in a Salt Lake museum. (''Devil's Gate'')

Chills from the north
"Otherworldly Maine" is a collection of darkly imaginative stories that evoke the state's eerie bogs, deep woods, and the spirit of its most famous writer, Stephen King.

Editor Noreen Doyle's selections range from tales by Mark Twain, a visitor to Maine in the late 1800s, to current residents Elizabeth Hand, who won a Nebula Award in 2007, and King, heralded by Doyle as the state's "towering contribution to modern fiction."

In King's entry in the volume, "Mrs. Todd's Shortcut," first published in Redbook in 1984, a wealthy summer resident fond of back roads is driven into another dimension. The shortest story in the collection, "By the Lake," by Jeff Hecht, a science writer who vacations in Maine, is a provocative tale about breeding and the silencing of jet skis.

Down East, publisher of "Otherworldly Maine," will be lauded as publisher of the year by the New England Independent Booksellers Association at its annual gathering later this month.

A hellish trek
Cambridge author David Roberts, an expert on mountaineering and the American West, explores a little-known wilderness disaster in his new book, "Devil's Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy" (Simon & Schuster).

In 1856, about 1,800 Mormons set out from Iowa, pushing their belongings in rickety handcarts on a 1,300-mile journey to Salt Lake City. As with the Donner party bound for California 10 years earlier, starvation and exposure claimed the lives of many. About 220 Mormons died along the way.

Roberts blames Young, leader of the Mormon church, for the deaths. The author argues that Young knew the food supplies were inadequate and the late starting date for the journey would make it impossible to avoid winter storms. Another failure of Young's judgment, he writes, was the reliance on handcarts instead of covered wagons. As part of his research, Roberts pushed a replica handcart loaded with 60 pounds of cargo along a trail. After 3 miles, he was exhausted.

Constant readers
RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, N.H., has found a way to get teenagers to read: encourage them to stay up all night.

When the bookstore hosted Great Expectations, a 24-hour reading marathon, in February, high school students were among the most enthusiastic participants. In between late-night snacks and games of literary Trivial Pursuit, marathoners read piles of books, according to Michele Filgate, cofounder of the event. Participants pledged to spend all or part of 24 hours reading at the bookstore and solicited donations for a homework club at a local school.

Now RiverRun is encouraging bookstores across the nation to follow suit and host a Great Expectations reading marathon during the month of October. RiverRun's read-a-thon will start at 6 p.m. Oct. 10. Details at riverrunevents.googlepages.com.

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