THE KLONDIKE FEVER (457 pp.)Pierre BerfonKnopf ($5.75).
Writers about the gold rush, one of history's maddest mass movements, have been almost as numerous as prospectors in the Klondike. But perhaps no one has told the story with the same fullness and readable authority as Canadian Journalist Pierre Berton in The Klondike Fever. Author Berton's credentials are convincing. His father staked a claim on Quigley Gulch in 1898, and while it produced only gravel, he stayed on and lived in fabled Dawson City for 40 years. Author Berton himself lived there until he was twelve, admits that it still "haunts my dreams and...