Alan Carlson

In May 2016, Fort McMurray, Alberta, the hub of Canada's oil industry, was overrun by wildfire. The multi-billion-dollar disaster turned entire neighbourhoods into firebombs and drove 90,000 people from their homes in a single afternoon. Through the story of this apocalyptic conflagration, John Vaillant explores the past and the future of our ever-hotter, more flammable world.

For hundreds of millennia, fire has been a partner in our evolution, shaping culture and civilization. Yet in our age of intensifying climate change, we are seeing its destructive power unleashed in ways never before witnessed by human beings. With masterly prose and cinematic style, Vaillant delves into the intertwined histories of the oil industry and climate science, the unprecedented devastation wrought by modern wildfires, and the lives forever changed by these disasters. Fire Weather is an urgent book for our new century of fire.

Can we make ourselves into better human beings? Can we help others do the same? And can we get the leaders of our society to care that humanity prospers, not just economically, but also spiritually? These questions have been asked for over two millennia and attempting to answer them is crucial if we want to live a better life and build a more just society. How to Be Good uses the story of Socrates and Alcibiades and examples from Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius and Machiavelli, alongside modern interpretations to explore what philosophy can teach us about the quest for virtue today. Whether we are statesmen or ordinary individuals Pigliucci argues that with a little work day by day we all have the power to pursue the timely and timeless art of living well.