“Like a blazing inferno that commands our attention and awe, we cannot look away from Fire Weather. John Vaillant brings the devastating 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire to life by introducing us, almost affectionately, to the human beings on the frontlines of the fossil fuel industry and the fire it produces that threatens us all. This is a deeply compelling, skillfully crafted story packed with information but completely free of ponderous lecturing. It is terrifying in its honest, textured description of what we have wrought in the name of progress, what we stand to lose, and where we might find the possibility of hope.”

—2024 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize Jury (Joanna Chiu, Dale Eisler, and Kathleen Wynne)

John Vaillant’s Fire Weather reveals to readers a character as ruthless, creative, and destructive as any in modern literature: fire itself. Through dynamic prose, deep research, and a profound sense of the stakes on a planet beset by climate change, Vaillant traces how Canada’s geological and economic history have converged to transform fire from a useful tool into an existential threat to our way of life. In the process, he crafts a narrative pulsing with beauty and annihilation, hubris and desire, and the unsettling revelation that what humanity has long considered its most important tool is no longer under our control.

The Jaguar’s Children is a haunting and exquisitely written book of the moment: a powerful novel about the repercussions of global inequity, human indecency, and an individual’s choices in the face of despair. John Vaillant gives us the story of Hector – a Zapotec smuggling himself out of Mexico in search of a better life. Balancing the poignant and luminous with the horrific is no easy feat butThe Jaguar’s Childrendoes just that. A praiseworthy addition to Vaillant’s already established standing as one of our very best writers. — 2015 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize Jury (Aislinn HUnter, Shani Mootoo, and Richard Wagamese)

“The wonder of The Golden Spruce is how author John Vaillant, in beautiful language, weaves a convergence of geography and greed, mythology and madness into a spectacular thriller. The story of this legendary tree on the Queen Charlotte Islands resonates marvellously with Canadian and, indeed, universal significance.” – 2005 Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize Jury (Ernest Hillen, Myrna Kostash, and Paula Todd)