Miss the woods? Haven't been Up North in a while? This week the Loft hosts an evening of writers reading from their poems and essays about the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Greg Breining will read from his new book of essays, "Paddle North." Betty Vos Hemstad, a photographer who has lived along the Gunflint Trail for 35 summers, will present her book, "Wildflowers of the Boundary Waters: Hiking Through the Seasons." Poet Joe Paddock is also the principal author of "Soil and Survival," published by the Sierra Club, and "Keeper of the Wild," a biography of Ernest Oberholtzer, from which he will read. And Stephen Wilburs will read from "Canoeing Across Time: A Boundary Waters History," to be published this spring.

All this at Open Book at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Campfires, sadly, not allowed.

Also ...

•A couple of other books about the Boundary Waters are forthcoming. "Where Memories Dream: Campfire Stories for the Boundary Waters" by Steven Coz will be published by Savage Press of Superior, Wis. And "Campfires and Loon Calls: Travels in the Boundary Waters," by Wisconsin writer Jerry Apps, with photographs by his son, Steve Apps, will be published at the end of March by Fulcrum.

•Lansing Shepard and Paula Westmoreland, authors of "This Perennial Land: Third Crops, Blue Earth and the Road to a Restorative Agriculture," will have a publication party and sign books at 5 p.m. Thursday at Lucia's Restaurant and Deli, 1432 W. 31st St., Mpls. The book's foreword is by Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.

•"How the Government Got in Your Backyard: Superweeds, Frankenfoods, Lawn Wars, and the (Nonpartisan) Truth About Environmental Policies," by Jeff Gillman and Eric Heberlig, has been published by Timber Press of Portland, Ore. Gillman is an associate professor of horticultural science at the University of Minnesota.

•"Remaking the Heartland: Middle America Since the 1950s," by Robert Wuthnow, has been published by Princeton University Press. The Twin Cities metro area, as well as rural Minnesota, Iowa and North Dakota, figure prominently in the text.

•"The City, the River, the Bridge: Before and After the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse," a collection of essays edited by Patrick Nunnally, has been published by the University of Minnesota Press.

•"The Good Caregiver: A One-of-a-Kind Compassionate Resource for Anyone Caring for an Aging Loved One," by Robert L. Kane, has been published by Avery. Kane directs the Center on Aging at the University of Minnesota.