JOHN VAILLANT’s acclaimed, award-winning non-fiction books, The Golden Spruce and The Tiger, were #1 national bestsellers. His debut novel, The Jaguar’s Children, was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award. He has written for, among others, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and The Walrus. He lives in Vancouver.
“In rich, painterly prose, [Vaillant] evokes the lush natural world
where the golden spruce took root and thrived, the temperate rain
forest of the Pacific Northwest. . . . Vaillant is absolutely
spellbinding when conjuring up the world of the golden spruce. His
descriptions of the Queen Charlotte Islands, with their misty,
murky light and hushed, cathedral-like forests, are haunting, and
he does full justice to the noble, towering trees. . . . The
chapters on logging, painstakingly researched, make high drama out
of the grueling, highly dangerous job of bringing down some of the
biggest trees on earth.” —The New York Times
“A page-turner as dramatic as a novel. . . . The story is as
majestic as the golden spruce, and we are fortunate to have a
writer of Vaillant’ s exceptional skill to tell the tale.”
—Vancouver Sun
“A beautifully rendered account of cultural clash and environmental
obsession.” —Maclean’s
“In a scrupulously researched narrative worthy of comparison to Jon
Krakauer’s Into the Wild, Vaillant uses a tragic episode to tell a
larger story of the heartbreakingly complex relationship between
man and nature.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor’s Choice)
“Vaillant writes eloquently of West Coast rainforests, quirky
characters drawn to a dangerous but lucrative life in logging and
Hadwin, who disappears into the BC archipelago, presumed dead. We
also learn a great deal about forest ecology and the crime of
clear-cutting.” —Canadian Geographic
“Balanced and gracefully written. . . .Vaillant explores the
subtleties of [Hadwin’ s] inner conflicts. . . . Vaillant’s
multi-layered book is a rich investigation of all the factors that
went into Hadwin’s act of arboreal vandalism.” —Edmonton
Journal
“[A] sense of the rank, dark underbelly of the [Queen Charlotte]
islands permeates the book, whose engrossing narrative passes
through the often lethal life of the logger, to the bloody battles
of the Haida and the ravaging of the forest itself by a detached
corporate entity unconcerned with the past or future.” —Times
Colonist (Victoria)
“Compelling. . . . Handily marries reportage with keen historical
insight. . . . [Like] Jon Krakauer and Sebastian Junger, Vaillant
deftly peels away the surface story to explore the psychology
below. . . . An intense mystery and a sweeping history, The Golden
Spruce makes for a terrific read.” —National Post
“Fascinating. . . . Both a gripping wilderness thriller and a
sharply focused summary of forest politics, Queen Charlotte Islands
history, and Pacific Northwest biology. Essential reading.” —The
Georgia Straight
“[A] powerful and vexing man-versus-nature tale set in an
extraordinary place . . . This tragic tale goes right to the heart
of the conflicts among loggers, native rights activists and
environmentalists, and induces us to more deeply consider the
consequences of our habits of destruction.” —Booklist (starred
review)
“Writing in a vigorous, evocative style, Vaillant portrays the
Pacific Northwest as a region of conflict and violence, from the
battles between Europeans and Indians over the 18th-century sea
otter trade to the hard-bitten, macho milieu of the logging camps,
where grisly death is an occupational hazard. It is also, in his
telling, a land of virtually infinite natural resources overmatched
by an even greater human rapaciousness. . . . Vaillant paints a
haunting portrait of man's vexed relationship with nature.”
—Publishers Weekly
“John Vaillant has written a work that will change how many people
think about nature. His story is about one man and one tree, but it
is much more than that. Logging is a brutally dangerous profession
that owns the dubious distinction of having killed and maimed even
more men than commercial fishing. Loggers’ work is both heroic and
sad, and only a writer of Vaillant’s skill could capture both
aspects of their dying world in such a powerful way.” —Sebastian
Junger, author of The Perfect Storm
For more than 300 years, a most unusual and revered Sitka spruce tree, with golden rather than green needles, grew on the western coast of British Columbia. But in 1997, a former logger named Grant Hadwin caused a public outcry when he surreptitiously cut down the tree, which was more than 20 feet around and 16 stories tall. Vaillant, who first wrote about the tree's death in The New Yorker, delves into the story behind this defiant act of protest by a one-time lumberjack who realized that the voracious timber industry was causing irreparable damage to the forests he loved. After providing a history of the resident Haida Indians before white men arrived, Vaillant discusses the timber industry's encroachment, the loggers' perilous work, and Hadwin's eventual transformation into an environmentalist. Because the golden spruce was sacred to the Haida and so special to the local people, Hadwin was threatened and arrested, and his strange disappearance before his trial became the subject of much speculation. Filled with interesting characters and fascinating details, Vaillant's engrossing account is recommended for public and academic libraries, especially those with Pacific Northwest or environmental collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/05.]-Ilse Heidmann, Washington State Lib., Olympia Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
"In rich, painterly prose, [Vaillant] evokes the lush natural world
where the golden spruce took root and thrived, the temperate rain
forest of the Pacific Northwest. . . . Vaillant is absolutely
spellbinding when conjuring up the world of the golden spruce. His
descriptions of the Queen Charlotte Islands, with their misty,
murky light and hushed, cathedral-like forests, are haunting, and
he does full justice to the noble, towering trees. . . . The
chapters on logging, painstakingly researched, make high drama out
of the grueling, highly dangerous job of bringing down some of the
biggest trees on earth." -The New York Times
"A page-turner as dramatic as a novel. . . . The story is as
majestic as the golden spruce, and we are fortunate to have a
writer of Vaillant' s exceptional skill to tell the tale."
-Vancouver Sun
"A beautifully rendered account of cultural clash and environmental
obsession." -Maclean's
"In a scrupulously researched narrative worthy of comparison to Jon
Krakauer's Into the Wild, Vaillant uses a tragic episode to tell a
larger story of the heartbreakingly complex relationship between
man and nature." -Entertainment Weekly (Editor's
Choice)
"Vaillant writes eloquently of West Coast rainforests, quirky
characters drawn to a dangerous but lucrative life in logging and
Hadwin, who disappears into the BC archipelago, presumed dead. We
also learn a great deal about forest ecology and the crime of
clear-cutting." -Canadian Geographic
"Balanced and gracefully written. . . .Vaillant explores the
subtleties of [Hadwin' s] inner conflicts. . . . Vaillant's
multi-layered book is a rich investigation of all the factors that
went into Hadwin's act of arboreal vandalism." -Edmonton
Journal
"[A] sense of the rank, dark underbelly of the [Queen Charlotte]
islands permeates the book, whose engrossing narrative passes
through the often lethal life of the logger, to the bloody battles
of the Haida and the ravaging of the forest itself by a detached
corporate entity unconcerned with the past or future." -Times
Colonist (Victoria)
"Compelling. . . . Handily marries reportage with keen historical
insight. . . . [Like] Jon Krakauer and Sebastian Junger, Vaillant
deftly peels away the surface story to explore the psychology
below. . . . An intense mystery and a sweeping history, The Golden
Spruce makes for a terrific read." -National Post
"Fascinating. . . . Both a gripping wilderness thriller and a
sharply focused summary of forest politics, Queen Charlotte Islands
history, and Pacific Northwest biology. Essential reading." -The
Georgia Straight
"[A] powerful and vexing man-versus-nature tale set in an
extraordinary place . . . This tragic tale goes right to the heart
of the conflicts among loggers, native rights activists and
environmentalists, and induces us to more deeply consider the
consequences of our habits of destruction." -Booklist
(starred review)
"Writing in a vigorous, evocative style, Vaillant portrays the
Pacific Northwest as a region of conflict and violence, from the
battles between Europeans and Indians over the 18th-century sea
otter trade to the hard-bitten, macho milieu of the logging camps,
where grisly death is an occupational hazard. It is also, in his
telling, a land of virtually infinite natural resources overmatched
by an even greater human rapaciousness. . . . Vaillant paints a
haunting portrait of man's vexed relationship with nature."
-Publishers Weekly
"John Vaillant has written a work that will change how many people
think about nature. His story is about one man and one tree, but it
is much more than that. Logging is a brutally dangerous profession
that owns the dubious distinction of having killed and maimed even
more men than commercial fishing. Loggers' work is both heroic and
sad, and only a writer of Vaillant's skill could capture both
aspects of their dying world in such a powerful way." -Sebastian
Junger, author of The Perfect
Storm
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
