2011 Winner: The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, by John Vaillant

A riveting account of the hunt for a marauding tiger, THE TIGER by John Vaillant is, simply put, an incredible story, told with a spareness and vividness that echoes Jon Krakauer, Peter Matthiessen, and other classic writers who explore man's interactions with nature.

Set in the bleak and forbidding cold of Siberia, and without ever resorting to anthropomorphism, Vaillant renders a Siberian tiger as a real character. This is a story of a primal subject, one that is almost premodern despite having happened just ten years ago. Vaillant explores the nature of predator and prey, and brings us into a world completely foreign to our own protected existence.

Vaillant's carefully drawn Siberia is a place of extraordinary privation, one where people still struggle to survive. He renders the will and resourcefulness required to live in such a place, and paints a compelling portrait of the people of the region. Slated to become a film for Focus Films starring Brad Pitt, The Tiger gives us an edge-of-your-seat story of one man's struggle against nature's most fearsome and efficient predator.

Click here to read The Tiger review and critical analysis.

Find out about his public presentation at Northland College.