Walk into any video rental store and take a look around, what do you see? What is the first thing that catches your eye? New releases, action, comedy, romance, hey it’s all good. Being a movie buff I spend way too much time living vicariously through my favourite actors. Next time you're in a video store though, check out the documentary section. Note how small it is compared to the other sections. Take a closer look and see the incredibly important amount of information there that the majority of people choose to ignore. The Eleventh hour, Who Killed the Electric Car, The Corporation, Why We Fight, The Future of Food and Darwin’s Nightmare are a very, very small fraction of what’s available but even just those titles alone will drastically change the way you view your world.

Even the movies in the other sections that fly under the radar are the ones that people really need to take a look at because although fictional, they have the spine of truth supporting them as opposed to a fifty million dollar marketing campaign. Lions for Lambs, War Inc., and most recently Ghost Writer are a few titles that flew in and out of the theaters faster than you can say, “Too close to the reality to be escapist entertainment.”

Before I get off my soapbox, I want to take this to the bookstores now. (After all this is eventually going to be a book review). Same thing: go into a book store and look around, Fictional works are the big sellers. Non-ficton, not so much unless you’re a student.

The biggest selling fictional author of all time with over 2 billion books sold is Agatha Christie. You want a real mystery? Read The Evolution of God by Robert Wright. Best selling adventure novelist with 750 million books sold is Harold Robbins. You want a real adventure? Read Blackwater by Jeremy Scahill. No big surprise that Stephen King is the horror king with 350 million books sold. You want the living poop scared out of you? Read Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky or perhaps American Fascists by Chris Hedges. A somewhat smaller but still significant category, the legal thriller market cornered by John Grisham at 100 million copies sold. You want a thriller that set the legal world on its ear? Read No Logo by Naomi Klein.

Yes, all of those titles are non fiction. No, they will probably not be on your teachers reading list. Doubtless you’ve heard of every single one of the best selling fiction authors I mentioned but be honest, how many of the non fiction authors are you familiar with? Yet like the film titles I mentioned earlier, the knowledge contained in these books are vitally important to anyone who wishes any sort of positive future for humankind.

Which brings me to my review. This is a non fiction book that has all the elements of every best selling fictional novel. Mystery, adventure, horror and a legal thriller all rolled into one. The book is called The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant. It is a very special writer who can tell a seemingly simple story of a tree and make it into something as epic as this Governor General’s Award winning book. This story is about the landscape of unparalleled beauty and violence that is the Canadian Northwest. It is the story about the clash of two cultures: the indigenous Haida Gwaii people and the many European explorers who came, saw and plundered. It is the story of the lumber industry. And at the core, it is the story of one man’s attempt to reconcile societies madness with another act of madness.

To scientists the Golden Spruce was an anomaly, a freak. To the Haida Gwaii it was almost a deity akin to the tree in Avatar. To the crazed frontiersman Grant Hadwin, it was a diversionary tactic of lumber giants, Mac Millian Bloedel. What he did to put the heat back onto ‘the bad guys’ was to play Judas and make a martyr out of the Haida Gwaii deity. Was he wrong? In my mind, unequivocally yes but don’t let me or anyone else make up your mind for you. Read it yourself and while you're in that part of the book store, take a good look around.

I don’t mean to bash light entertainment. I could watch old Three Stooges shows all night, I own the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and I’m a closet comic book guy. All I’m saying is try and balance the bologna with a little substance.