Kings of the Yukon

Reviews / Votes

Weymouth combines acute political, personal and ecological understanding, with the most beautiful writing reminiscent of a young Robert Macfarlane . . . He is, I have no doubt, a significant voice for the future . . . a really outstanding new contemporary British voice . . . I've never seen such a strong and excited consensus among the judges for a winner. -- Andrew Holgate, Sunday Times literary editor and judge of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2018 Lyrical ... The elegiac tone that fills Kings of the Yukon, the sorrow at the loss of culture and nature in the wilderness, is an unavoidable reflection of life in the 21st century -- Richard Lea * Guardian * A rich and fascinating book ... So vivid it reads like a thriller ... I was hooked -- Elisa Segrave * Spectator * [Weymouth's] account ... is so assured, so accomplished, that I found it hard to believe it was his first book ... rich in characters, and beautifully written. -- Michael Kerr, 'The best Christmas books for travellers' * The Telegraph * An epic ... Eloquent and tautly written -- Tom Fort * Literary Review * I was knocked sideways by this book and quite unexpectedly. Adam Weymouth takes his place beside the great travel writers like Chatwin, Thubron, Leigh Fermor, in one bound. But like their books this is about so much more than just travel. -- Susan Hill [A] brilliant account of a summer spent paddling the 2,000-mile length of the Yukon River... Kings of the Yukon succeeds as an adventure tale, a natural history and a work of art. Its various threads of context and back story are woven seamlessly into the daily panorama of the river journey -- Richard Adams Carey * Wall Street Journal * Dazzling, often in unexpected ways, Adam Weymouth is a wonderful travel writer, nature writer, adventure writer - along the way, he is also a nuanced examiner of some of the world's most fraught and urgent questions about the interconnectedness of people and the natural world. -- Kamila Shamsie, author of 'Home Fire' This is the best kind of travel writing. Weymouth embarks on an ambitious journey - 2,000 miles down the Yukon in a canoe - voyaging, listening and learning. An outstanding book -- Rob Penn * author of The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees * An enthralling account of a literary and scientific quest. Adam Weymouth vividly conveys the raw grandeur and deep silences of the Yukon landscape, and endows his subject, the river's King Salmon, with a melancholy nobility -- Luke Jennings * author of Blood Knots and Atlantic *