''Among Grizzlies: Living With Wild Bears In Alaska''

----------------------------------------------------------------- "Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska" by Timothy Treadwell and Jewel Palovak HarperCollins, $24 -----------------------------------------------------------------

After a near-fatal drug overdose, Timothy Treadwell knew he needed purpose to his life. Dreams of the strength and freedom of bears drew him to Alaska, where he determined to live among, to study and protect the last large populations of grizzlies. His interesting account spans several years, from his first bumbling mistakes until the summer of 1995, when he lived peacefully with bears in four research areas, "nature's secret classrooms."

Like Africa naturalist Jane Goodall, Treadwell gives personal names to his subjects. In Grizzly Sanctuary, a huge meadow near the ocean, he follows Booble as she digs clams, naps in Mr. Chocolate's "daybed" while he feeds on protein-rich sedge grass, and finally has to get tough with a sub-adult male, Cupcake, who can't stop causing trouble. Bears have distinct personalities, Treadwell shows, and as a group, individual roles become clearly defined by gender, size and age.

Like humans, bears are at the top of their food chain. Loss of habitat is the major threat to their survival, followed by sport hunting, poaching and unnecessary killing for their gallbladders, whose unclear medical/aphrodisiac properties can be synthesized anyway. Left alone, Treadwell demonstrates, the species would surely flourish.