Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness
Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness
Lone Wolf: Walking the Line Between Civilization and Wildness
Description
Description
An intimate account of an epic walking journey through a tense and shifting Europe in the footsteps of one extraordinary wolf. In the winter of 2011, a young wolf, named Slavc by the scientists who collared him, left his natal pack's territory in Slovenia, embarking on what would become a two thousand kilometre trek to northern Italy. There, he found a mate--named Juliet--and they produced the first pack in the region in a hundred years. A decade later, captivated by Slavc's journey, Adam Weymouth set out to walk the same route. As he made his way through mountainous terrain, villages and farmland, he bore witness to the fears and harsh realities of those living on the margins of rural society at a time of deep political and social flux, for whom the surging wolf population posed an existential threat. In Lone Wolf, Weymouth interrogates how the wolf--loved and loathed, vilified and romanticized throughout history--is re-emerging in wild and cultivated landscapes; how the borders between us and them are slipping away; and what our deep-rooted fear of the mysterious creature really means. Sharply observed, searching, poetic and revealing, Lone Wolf is a story of wildness and of the human desire for order in an ever-evolving world.
About the Author
About the Author
ADAM WEYMOUTH is a freelance journalist and has written for wide ranging publications including The Guardian, the BBC, The Atlantic, Arena and the Lacuna. Adam became hooked on Alaska and its rich cultural, historical and ecological history after being awarded a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship to investigate the human impacts of resource extraction and climate change in 2013. This passion has resulted in Kings of the Yukon, Adam's debut book, which was longlisted for the Ondaatje Prize. Adam also won the Sunday Times/PFD Young Writer of the Year Award in 2018. Adam lives on a narrowboat in London and continues to travel extensively.
Critical Reviews
Critical Reviews
"The wolf's resurgence across Europe is a story that will be new to most North American readers, and there is nobody better to tell it than Adam Weymouth. Who else would have conceived of--much less actually completed--retracing on foot the thousand-mile journey of the continent's most celebrated wolf? I enjoyed the story of Slavc, the wandering Slovenian-born wolf who almost single-handedly recolonized the Italian Alps, almost as much as Weymouth's account of the people the author met along the rural byways of Central Europe, many of them farmers contending with climate change, historic drought, political discord--and, yes, wolves. Highly recommended!" --Nate Blakeslee, author of The Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West
"Adam Weymouth set off in search of a wolf and found modernity howling back at him, as if nature were inseparable from culture, this being inseparable from us. A gorgeous, loping, deeply observant inquiry into the meaning of coexistence on a changing planet." --Kate Harris, author of Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road "A wolf's footsteps, followed; a continent's faultlines, traced: Adam Weymouth has made a formidable, thousand-mile foot-journey, both in the tracks of a wolf and into the heart of human-animal relations in contemporary Europe -- and written an exceptional book about it. His prose has a glinting precision of analysis and evocation to it; his intense curiosity and empathy extend across species boundaries as well towards people and landscapes. Weymouth has written a deeply fascinating story, grippingly told -- and produced a second book to stand alongside his outstanding debut, Kings of the Yukon." --Robert Macfarlane, author of Is a River Alive? "Lone Wolf is a major addition to the lupine literary canon--at once a gripping animal adventure story and a thoughtful meditation on history, wanderlust, and belonging in a globalized world. Few writers see this mythologized and misunderstood predator as clearly as Adam Weymouth." --Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings and Eager "A majestic and hopeful journey, movingly told by one of our master storytellers." --Ben Rawlence, author of The Treeline "Sharing Adam Weymouth's epic journey across Europe in the footsteps of a pioneering wolf is to walk the knife-edge between the tame and the wild. A bold, beautiful, confronting journey charting a continent buckling under social and environmental pressure. A book about a wolf, about love and hate, and our conflicted relationship with nature and our fellow human beings. A timely and fascinating read." --Isabella Tree, bestselling author of Wilding
"Beautiful and as propulsive as a dispersing wolf, Weymouth uses the path taken by Slavc to travel into Europe's soul. Engaging deeply with locals about wolves, climate change, modernity, and immigration, Weymouth gives the people he meets room to tell their own stories. The reader comes away with deepened understanding and compassion for people on every side of the debate over Europe's ongoing rewilding. Essential reading for armchair adventurers and for those who wish to explore the sometimes uncomfortable complexities of rewilding on a thoroughly humanized continent." --Emma Marris, author of Wild Souls
"Adam Weymouth set off in search of a wolf and found modernity howling back at him, as if nature were inseparable from culture, this being inseparable from us. A gorgeous, loping, deeply observant inquiry into the meaning of coexistence on a changing planet." --Kate Harris, author of Lands of Lost Borders: A Journey on the Silk Road "A wolf's footsteps, followed; a continent's faultlines, traced: Adam Weymouth has made a formidable, thousand-mile foot-journey, both in the tracks of a wolf and into the heart of human-animal relations in contemporary Europe -- and written an exceptional book about it. His prose has a glinting precision of analysis and evocation to it; his intense curiosity and empathy extend across species boundaries as well towards people and landscapes. Weymouth has written a deeply fascinating story, grippingly told -- and produced a second book to stand alongside his outstanding debut, Kings of the Yukon." --Robert Macfarlane, author of Is a River Alive? "Lone Wolf is a major addition to the lupine literary canon--at once a gripping animal adventure story and a thoughtful meditation on history, wanderlust, and belonging in a globalized world. Few writers see this mythologized and misunderstood predator as clearly as Adam Weymouth." --Ben Goldfarb, author of Crossings and Eager "A majestic and hopeful journey, movingly told by one of our master storytellers." --Ben Rawlence, author of The Treeline "Sharing Adam Weymouth's epic journey across Europe in the footsteps of a pioneering wolf is to walk the knife-edge between the tame and the wild. A bold, beautiful, confronting journey charting a continent buckling under social and environmental pressure. A book about a wolf, about love and hate, and our conflicted relationship with nature and our fellow human beings. A timely and fascinating read." --Isabella Tree, bestselling author of Wilding
"Beautiful and as propulsive as a dispersing wolf, Weymouth uses the path taken by Slavc to travel into Europe's soul. Engaging deeply with locals about wolves, climate change, modernity, and immigration, Weymouth gives the people he meets room to tell their own stories. The reader comes away with deepened understanding and compassion for people on every side of the debate over Europe's ongoing rewilding. Essential reading for armchair adventurers and for those who wish to explore the sometimes uncomfortable complexities of rewilding on a thoroughly humanized continent." --Emma Marris, author of Wild Souls
Publishing Information
Publishing Information
Publisher:
Knopf Canada
Pub date:
2025-06-03
Length:
288 pages
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