About the Authors
John Vaillant is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Outside, and Men’s Journal, among others. Of particular interest to Vaillant are stories that explore collisions between human ambition and the natural world. His work in this and other fields has taken him to five continents and five oceans.
His first book, The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed, was a bestseller and won several awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. His second book, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, was an international bestseller and has been translated
into 15 languages. In 2014, Vaillant won Yale University’s Windham Campbell prize for nonfiction.
Jack London (1876–1916) was an American author, journalist, and
social activist. Before making a living at his writing, he spent time as an
oyster pirate, a sailor, a cannery worker, a gold miner, and a journalist. He
was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and
was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large
fortune from his fiction writing. He is best known for his novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set during the Klondike
gold rush, as well as the short stories “To Build a Fire,” “An Odyssey of the
North,” and “Love of Life.” He also
wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as “The Pearls of Parlay” and “The
Heathen.” He was a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the
rights of workers and wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics,
including The Iron Heel, The People of the Abyss, and The War of the Classes.
Sebastian Junger is the New York Times bestselling author of several books. Together with Tim Hetherington, he directed the documentary Restrepo, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. He is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and has been awarded a National Magazine Award and an SAIS Novartis Prize for journalism.
John Muir (1838–1914), Scottish-born American naturalist, was one of the most influential conservationists and nature writers in American history. Founder of the Sierra Club and its president until his death, he was instrumental in helping to save wilderness areas, including Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park. He was a spirit so free that all he did to prepare for an expedition was to “throw some tea and bread into an old sack and jump the back fence.”
Rick Bass is an American author of numerous award-winning works of fiction and nonfiction. His memoir Why I Came West was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His short fiction, which has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, Esquire, and the Paris Review, as well as numerous times in Best American Short Stories, has earned him multiple O. Henry Awards and Pushcart Prizes as well as NEA and Guggenheim fellowships. He was born and raised in Texas, worked as a petroleum geologist in Mississippi, and has lived in Montana’s Yaak Valley for almost three decades.
Kirsten Potter has won several awards, including more than a dozen AudioFile Earphones Awards and been a three-time finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration. Her work has been recognized by the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and by AudioFile magazine, among many others. She graduated with highest honors from Boston University and has performed on stage and in film and television, including roles on Medium, Bones, and Judging Amy.
About the Narrators
Graeme Malcolm is an actor and Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator. He has performed on Broadway as Pharaoh in Aida and as Sir Edward Ramsay in The King and I. His television appearances include Law & Order, Follow the River, and Mr. Halpern and Mr. Johnson (with Laurence Olivier). His film credits include A Further Gesture, The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, and Reunion.
Graeme Malcolm is an actor and Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator. He has performed on Broadway as Pharaoh in Aida and as Sir Edward Ramsay in The King and I. His television appearances include Law & Order, Follow the River, and Mr. Halpern and Mr. Johnson (with Laurence Olivier). His film credits include A Further Gesture, The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, and Reunion.
Clint Willis, a climber since he was ten years old, has written more than forty anthologies on adventure, politics, religion, and war, as well as hundreds of articles for such publications as the New York Times, Men’s Journal, and Outside. His work has been nominated for the National Magazine Award.