Several years ago I saw a bit of Siberia. Not much, just the snow-covered tops of the mountains that line the Bering Sea coast near the city of Provideniya. I was standing in the Alaska when this happened, on the far northwest tip of St. Lawrence Island. The island is about an hour's flight from Nome, a flight made in a single-engine plane flying over water thick with chunks of spring-breakup ice. (The pilot on our flight told us the survival suits the plane carried in case of mishap were known to locals as body bags.) Friends and I were staying in the village of Gambell, enjoying 22 hours of sunlight as we searched for Eurasian bird species that, hopefully, had strayed enough off course to need a breather on the island. Enjoying sunlight is tough to do in Gambell, actually, because it's cloudy/rainy/stormy about 340 days of the year. We got lucky on that trip, sunlight warming us as we stood in the wind on what birders call The Point to watch hundreds of thousands of sea birds fly by. And, there just above the waves was shiny Siberia. Plus, the International Date Line runs through the Bering Sea at that point, so we were looking not only at another continent but also at another day; we could see tomorrow.

We fulfilled our mission when it came to birds, sightings of species we hadn't seen before a daily experience. I can't remember which species, but Siberia is frozen in place in my mind. I loved the stories village residents, who had relatives there, told us about that very foreign place.

Now the point of this long introduction: one of my favorite authors, Ian Frazier, has written a book called "Travels in Siberia." Frazier is author of several other books, and a frequent contributor to "The New Yorker." I've enjoyed his work for years. But this new book, recently released by publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux, is his best by far for me. (Of course, I've seen Siberia.)

Few travelers these days are referred to as intrepid – in possession of resolute fearlessness, fortitude, and endurance (as defined by Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary) Intrepid is a bygone word for bygone days. Frazier, however, is intrepid. And dauntless. Driven by an endless curiosity, his fortitude and endurance serve us well.

The book is about travel, history, adventure, people, weather (oh, lots of weather), mosquitoes (lots of them, too), fishing, camping, old cars and daredevil drivers, among many other things. It mentions birds on 16 pages, which makes it that much better. Winter is coming, and winter, when birding for many of us is focused on the few daylight hours feeders are visible, is the perfect time to read about Siberia. Tuck into a warm place, and follow Frazier across the tundra. He won't disappoint you.

If you want to hear him read from this book, his author's tour will bring him to Minneapolis Oct. 26. He'll be here as part of the Library Foundation of Hennepin County's "Talk of the Stacks" series. The event will be held at the Minneapolis Central Library, downtown, free, doors open at 6:15 p.m., program underway at 7 o'clock.