John Vaillant

Jon Vaillant's The Tiger is being defended by Anne-France Goldwater in the Canada Reads 2012 debates.

John Vaillant has long had a taste for adventure. Born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he hitchhiked to Alaska after finishing college and spent several years working on the salmon boats. In 1998, he realized that, apart from being adventurous, he had a passion for writing about the "collision between human beings and the environment" -- and he has been writing ever since. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, The Walrus and Outside Magazine. The Vancouver-based author's first book, The Golden Spruce (2005), won both the Governor General's Award and the Writer's Trust Award for non-fiction.

Vaillant was inspired to write The Tiger after watching Sasha Snow's documentary Conflict Tiger, and he has maintained a connection with the filmmaker, who is currently making a film based on Vaillant's The Golden Spruce.

Get to know John Vaillant by watching our video chat here.

Listen to John Vaillant read an excerpt from The Tiger here.

Listen to John Vaillant on The Next Chapter here.

See John Vaillant's The Tiger playlist here.