Lone Wolf
A Journey Into the Wild Heart of the Alps
Will be published approx. on 25. June 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
384 pages
978-1-5291-5833-5 (ISBN)
Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week
A Financial Times Book of the Year
'AN EXCEPTIONAL BOOK.' Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland
'A BOLD, BEAUTIFUL, CONFRONTING JOURNEY.' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding
'LOVELY ... FULL OF INCIDENT, COLOUR AND NUGGETY FACTS.' Robbie Millen, The Times
From the winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award comes an epic walk across the Alps in the footsteps of a wolf, throwing unique light on Europe's mountainous hinterlands at a moment of political and environmental change.
In 2011, a young wolf named Slavc set out from Slovenia. Traced by GPS, he travelled a thousand miles through the Alps, arriving four months later on the Lessinian plateau, north of Verona. There had been no wolves in northern Italy for a century, but here he crossed paths with a female wolf on a walkabout of her own. A decade later and there are more than a hundred wolves back in the area, the result of their remarkable meeting.
In Lone Wolf, Weymouth walks Slavc's path, examining the changes facing these wild corners of Europe. Here, the call to rewild meets the urge to preserve culture; nationalism and globalisation pull apart; climate change is radically changing lives; and migrants, too, are on the move.
The result is a multifaceted account of a region caught in a moment of kaleidoscopic flux, from an award-winning writer with a uniquely perceptive eye for detail.
BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week
A Financial Times Book of the Year
'AN EXCEPTIONAL BOOK.' Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland
'A BOLD, BEAUTIFUL, CONFRONTING JOURNEY.' Isabella Tree, author of Wilding
'LOVELY ... FULL OF INCIDENT, COLOUR AND NUGGETY FACTS.' Robbie Millen, The Times
From the winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award comes an epic walk across the Alps in the footsteps of a wolf, throwing unique light on Europe's mountainous hinterlands at a moment of political and environmental change.
In 2011, a young wolf named Slavc set out from Slovenia. Traced by GPS, he travelled a thousand miles through the Alps, arriving four months later on the Lessinian plateau, north of Verona. There had been no wolves in northern Italy for a century, but here he crossed paths with a female wolf on a walkabout of her own. A decade later and there are more than a hundred wolves back in the area, the result of their remarkable meeting.
In Lone Wolf, Weymouth walks Slavc's path, examining the changes facing these wild corners of Europe. Here, the call to rewild meets the urge to preserve culture; nationalism and globalisation pull apart; climate change is radically changing lives; and migrants, too, are on the move.
The result is a multifaceted account of a region caught in a moment of kaleidoscopic flux, from an award-winning writer with a uniquely perceptive eye for detail.
Reviews / Votes
Weymouth's 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. -- Robert Macfarlane, author of UNDERLAND A majestic and hopeful journey, movingly told by one of our master storytellers -- Ben Rawlence, author of THE TREELINE A lovely, untwee piece of nature writing, full of incident, colour and nuggety facts. -- Robbie Millen * The TImes * 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, author of WILDING An excellent book. Literary reportage at its best. Weymouth has the flare of Joan Didion and the eye for striking detail of Ryszard Kapuscinski.In Lone Wolf, Adam Weymouth reaffirms his position as a hugely valuable guide to complicated, contemporary problems - environmental breakdown, human migration, political fragmentation - problems we have no choice but to confront now. -- Robert Penn, author of THE MAN WHO MADE THINGS OUT OF TREES Adam Weymouth has the extraordinary ability to narrate a global story of conflict and climate, migration and intolerance, vulnerability and resilience, through the lens of one species. One instinctively trusts what he writes because his senses are so finely tuned to the natural world - including to us corrosive humans - and his precise prose balances simplicity with depth, erudition and wistfulness. -- Tobias Jones, author of THE DARK HEART OF ITALY An intricate, intimate interweaving of wolf and human worlds, Weymouth's journey acts like a thread that draws the two together. His storytelling is as supple and powerful as the wolf itself, perfectly paced and balanced. A book full of hope for recovery in a fractured continent. -- Nick Hunt, author of OUTLANDISH Through the footsteps of the wolf, Weymouth reveals the 'faultlines' of Europe, the faultlines in nature, and some of the faultlines of the human condition. He achieves an imperative of our times: he has written a book that weaves natural ecology to human ecology in one scintillating fabric -- Professor Alastair McIntosh, author of SOIL AND SOUL and POACHER'S PILGRIMAGE Adam Weymouth is a fine, fine writer - beautifully balanced, dexterous, sensitive, and gifted with the ability to create the most haunting images. His portrait of the wolf in this immensely thoughtful and inventive book is astounding and at time jaw-dropping, his account of the natural and cultural world through which it travels profound. Like Bruce Chatwin, he's equally at home with nature, culture and people and approaches them all with the same insight. Wonderful. -- Andrew Holgate Lone Wolf beautifully explores the intertwined histories of wolves and humans in some of the remotest parts of Europe. Adam Weymouth brings nuance and sensitivity to the fraught question of how humans can - or should - co-exist with the wilder species we live among and has an uncanny ability to bring to life these creatures as they move like quicksilver through the landscape. Lone Wolf encourages us to examine our thoughts around the politics of borders, the management of habitats, and asks questions about how we might live with grace on our planet. -- Joanna Pocock, author of SURRENDER
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Cornerstone
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
260 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5291-5833-5 (9781529158335)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Person
Adam Weymouth's work has been published widely, including in Granta, The Atlantic, The Observer and the BBC. His first book, Kings of the Yukon, won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, the Lonely Planet Adventure Travel Book of the Year and the Prix Paul-Emile Victor. He has been named by the National Writing Centre as one of ten writers shaping the UK's future.