Seems it wasn’t enough to win the Roger’s Cable Non-fiction Award, or the Drummer’s General Award, and then the B.C National Non-fiction Book Award, or be a Globe and Mail  book of the year. Or to be glowingly reviewed in the Globe and Mail, the Quill & Quire, and the National Post, and convincingly endorsed by Lisa Moore, Michael Winter, Ken Harvey …

Wangersky also took the ten-thousand dollar Edna Staebler Award for creative non-fiction this month.

Coincidentally, I had the pleasure of meeting him tonight. He’s a great man, this is a great book, and Christmas is coming up.

I just plucked this quote off Wilfred Laurier University’s site. It’s more than convincing. “Wangersky’s book offers a crystal-clear portrait of a man who, through his career as a firefighter, becomes addicted to the rush of danger. In a narrative stacked with house fires, car wrecks and various other human tragedies, Wangersky portrays the emotional contingencies and lingering trauma that slowly begin to pull his life apart. This is a powerful book that illuminates the darker natures of those whom we trust with our lives.

Tanis MacDonald, award juror for the Edna Staebler Award, “Burning Down the House is a memoir in the truest definition of the word: a book that explores memory as both a creative and destructive force.”