Thoughtful, nuanced and empathetic ... Weymouth listens with impressive open-mindedness to the people he meets along the way ... Fascinating though the issues are, you read Weymouth for the travel writing. His pen portraits are vivid and acute ... A lyrical account of a young Italian couple who have taken up shepherding, in the shadow of the wolves’ territory, makes you long to know them, and maybe to be them ... He does not romanticise the world, though, or the wolf—or himself. Among travel and nature writers, that is rare restraint ... A spoiler would be unfair, but the [last] moment is handled with extraordinary delicacy, making an utterly fitting conclusion to a very fine book.
In this moving, vivid account, Weymouth follows Slavc’s 635 GPS points across central Europe. An adventurer with a deep feeling for nature and animals, he encounters the spectrum of human attitudes towards wolves, from farmers and politicians intent on their extermination to academics devoted to their preservation ... Weymouth’s gift for description, especially of landscapes, is evident on almost every page.
Enlightening ... While the reader may not agree with all of Weymouth’s conclusions, his interviewing skills and compelling narrative style are unquestionable.
A fascinating, powerfully rendered portrait that extends beyond wolves to human nature ... With clear, engrossing prose [Weymouth] illuminates the plight of the wolf in the modern era—one that plumbs the depths of belonging.
Scintillating ... Weymouth is an ace travel writer whose immersive prose brings to vivid life the characters and settings he encounters ... It adds up to a penetrating analysis of wolves’ contested place in a human-dominated world.
