{"title":"AJ's Reading List","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"fire-weather-a-true-story-from-a-hotter-world","title":"Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World","description":"\u003cp\u003eA stunning account of a colossal wildfire that collided with a city and a panoramic exploration of the rapidly changing relationship between fire and humankind.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn May 2016, Fort McMurray, the hub of Canada’s oil industry and America’s biggest foreign supplier, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster melted vehicles, turned entire neighborhoods into firebombs, and drove 88,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the lens of this apocalyptic conflagration—the wildfire equivalent of Hurricane Katrina—John Vaillant warns that this was not a unique event but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFire has been a partner in our evolution for millennia, shaping culture, civilization, and, very likely, our brains. Fire has enabled us to cook our food, defend and heat our homes, and power the machines that drive our titanic economy. Yet this volatile energy source has always threatened to elude our control, and in our new age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in previously unimaginable ways.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith masterly prose and a cinematic eye, Vaillant takes us on a riveting journey through the intertwined histories of North America’s oil industry and the birth of climate science, to the unprecedented devastation that modern forest fires wreak, and into lives forever changed by these disasters. His urgent work is a book for—and from—our new century of fire, which has only just begun.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Alpine Book Peddlers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52784782934384,"sku":"9780735273177","price":25.0,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0985\/0463\/8832\/files\/9780735273177.jpg?v=1765836020"},{"product_id":"outsider-an-old-man-a-mountain-and-the-search-for-a-hidden-past","title":"Outsider An Old Man, a Mountain and the Search for a Hidden Past","description":"\u003cp\u003eNATIONAL BESTSELLER\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWinner of the 2024 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFinalist for the Ottawa Books Awards\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eInto the Wild meets Born to Run meets The Stranger in the Woods in a fascinating true story of a marathon-running hermit and a journalist's quest to solve the mystery at the core of the enigmatic man's existence\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhen journalist Brett Popplewell first heard about Dag Aabye, an aging former stuntman who lived alone inside a school bus on a mountain, running day and night through blizzards and heat waves, he was intrigued and bewildered. Captivated by the seemingly implausible tale of a wild super-athlete aging more slowly than the rest of us, he was determined to meet the apocryphal white-haired man who was pushing the boundaries of the human mind and body beyond what anyone could dream was possible.\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWhat Popplewell witnessed on a secluded mountain perch led him on a six-year odyssey to uncover the true story of the 81-year-old man. \u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eOutsider takes readers on a remarkable journey from Nazi-occupied Norway to Argentina and British Columbia. The book chronicles how a child born under mysterious circumstances during World War II finds his way onto the big screen in Goldfinger, is heralded as the world's first extreme skier, and is later driven into the wilderness. Both joyful and tragic, Outsider presents a bold challenge to our notions of aging, belonging and human accomplishment.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Alpine Book Peddlers","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52896067944816,"sku":"9781443457859","price":25.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0985\/0463\/8832\/files\/25659803482701.jpg?v=1767991416"},{"product_id":"northern-bull","title":"Northern Bull","description":"\u003cp\u003eOver the course of one bitterly cold winter day in Yellowknife, Northern Bull takes readers on a joyful and hilarious journey of love and friendship as a quirky cast of characters sets out to find a missing moose head.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt’s a cold, dark January day in Yellowknife. A down-on-his-luck fisherman, Jacques, needs to convince his landlord not to tear down his ramshackle house. But when his volatile hunting buddy, Craig, accuses him of stealing a prized moose head, Jacques must put everything aside to find the bull before midnight, or there’s no telling what Craig might do.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMeanwhile, Jacques’s next-door neighbour Maggie is trying to face her fears by writing a story for the annual community burlesque show. But when she accidentally breaks Jacques’s window, she is determined to help save his home and find the moose head—and maybe something more.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOver a single day, with flashbacks to the hunting trip that started it all and culminating in a wild night no one in Yellowknife will ever forget, we follow Jacques, Maggie and a quirky cast of supporting characters as they race against time—on snowmobiles—to find the moose, brave the stage, and take a chance on themselves and on love. A hilarious and charming ode to life in the north.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Raincoast","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53195989385584,"sku":"9781997534051","price":24.95,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0985\/0463\/8832\/files\/9781997534051.jpg?v=1769022017"},{"product_id":"project-hail-mary-a-novel-1","title":"Project Hail Mary (Movie Tie-In)","description":"\u003cb\u003e#1 \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES \u003c\/i\u003eBESTSELLER • Now a major motion picture starring Ryan Gosling, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, with a screenplay by Drew Goddard\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this “propulsive” (\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e), cinematic thriller full of suspense, humor, and fascinating science—from the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Martian\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHUGO AWARD FINALIST • \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e READER PICK: 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY • ONE OF THE YEAR’S BEST BOOKS: \u003ci\u003eParade, Newsweek, \u003c\/i\u003eNew York Public Library, \u003ci\u003ePolygon, Shelf Awareness, She Reads, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRyland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExcept that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAll he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHis crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOr does he?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHailed by \u003ci\u003eUSA Today \u003c\/i\u003eas “an epic story of redemption, discovery, and cool speculative sci-fi,” \u003ci\u003eProject Hail Mary\u003c\/i\u003e is an irresistible interstellar adventure as only Andy Weir could deliver.","brand":"Andy Weir","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53290000122224,"sku":"9798217299461","price":29.99,"currency_code":"CAD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0985\/0463\/8832\/files\/9798217299461.jpg?v=1775073359"}],"url":"https:\/\/papervalebooks.com\/collections\/ajs-reading-list.oembed","provider":"Papervale Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}