Lone Wolf
Read by
John Sackville
Release:
06/03/2025
Runtime:
10h 27m
Unabridged
Quantity:
The wolf’s resurgence across Europe is a story that will be new to most 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, New York Times bestselling author of American Wolf
An illuminating account of a lone wolf journeying across the Alps into Italy, and what the resurgence of wolves says about our connection to nature, immigration, and one another—from an award-winning journalist.
“Lone Wolf is a deeply fascinating story, grippingly told.”—Robert Macfarlane, New York Times bestselling author of Underland
FINALIST FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE
In 2011, a lone wolf named Slavc set out from his home territory of Slovenia on an epic journey across the Alps. Tracked by a GPS collar, he walked over a thousand miles. In Italy he bumped into a female wolf on a walkabout of her own—the only two wolves for hundreds of square miles—and when they mated, they formed the first pack to call these mountains home in over a century. Today there are more than a hundred wolves in the area, the result of their remarkable meeting.
In Lone Wolf, writer Adam Weymouth walks the same path through the mountains of Central Europe, interrogating the fears and realities of those living on land that is being repopulated by wolves and exploring the economic, political, and climate upheavals that are seeing a centuries-old way of life being upended.
Weymouth endeavors to understand how wolves—vilified throughout history and folklore—are recolonizing lands where they have been unknown for centuries and how, as the wolf has returned, the fear and hatred have come back, too. Slavc is one more outsider in a region now wrestling with an influx of immigration and a resurgence of the far right, alongside impacts of climate change that are already very real. It is here that questions of how we see the other and treat the Earth cannot be ignored. Examining the political dimensions brought to light by this individual animal’s trek, Lone Wolf tells a newly resonant story—one about the courage required to seek out a new life and the challenge of accepting the changing world around us.
Sharply observed, searching, and written in precise, poetic prose, Lone Wolf explores the thorny connection between humans and nature, and indeed between borders themselves, and presses us to consider this much-discussed creature anew.
“Lone Wolf is a deeply fascinating story, grippingly told.”—Robert Macfarlane, New York Times bestselling author of Underland
FINALIST FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE
In 2011, a lone wolf named Slavc set out from his home territory of Slovenia on an epic journey across the Alps. Tracked by a GPS collar, he walked over a thousand miles. In Italy he bumped into a female wolf on a walkabout of her own—the only two wolves for hundreds of square miles—and when they mated, they formed the first pack to call these mountains home in over a century. Today there are more than a hundred wolves in the area, the result of their remarkable meeting.
In Lone Wolf, writer Adam Weymouth walks the same path through the mountains of Central Europe, interrogating the fears and realities of those living on land that is being repopulated by wolves and exploring the economic, political, and climate upheavals that are seeing a centuries-old way of life being upended.
Weymouth endeavors to understand how wolves—vilified throughout history and folklore—are recolonizing lands where they have been unknown for centuries and how, as the wolf has returned, the fear and hatred have come back, too. Slavc is one more outsider in a region now wrestling with an influx of immigration and a resurgence of the far right, alongside impacts of climate change that are already very real. It is here that questions of how we see the other and treat the Earth cannot be ignored. Examining the political dimensions brought to light by this individual animal’s trek, Lone Wolf tells a newly resonant story—one about the courage required to seek out a new life and the challenge of accepting the changing world around us.
Sharply observed, searching, and written in precise, poetic prose, Lone Wolf explores the thorny connection between humans and nature, and indeed between borders themselves, and presses us to consider this much-discussed creature anew.
Release:
2025-06-03
Runtime:
10h 27m
Format:
audio
Weight:
0.0 lb
Language:
English
ISBN:
9798217080229
Publisher:
Penguin Random House
Praise