American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West Audiobook

Quotes

• A New York Times Book Review Editors' ChoiceShortlisted for the 2018 J. Anthony Lukas PrizeAn Outside Magazine Best Book of 2017A Science Friday Best Science Book of 2017

• Blakeslee draws O-Six in novelistic... detail, using the conflicting insight and perspective of biologists, politicians, ranchers, environmentalists, lawyers, other animals, and hunters.... Seeing a wolf is exceptionally rare, and this book is as close as most readers will come.

  — The New Yorker

• "The story of one wolf’s struggle to survive in the majestic Yellowstone National Park offers an ambitious look through the eyes of an endangered animal.

  — New York Times Book Review

• “Ambitious... a significant and engaging work. It’s easy to write about the importance of local social life. It’s harder to know what to do to support it.... Klinenberg’s argument has a powerful simplicity. Look after the social infrastructure and social bonds will largely look after themselves.

  — Financial Times

• “American Wolf takes its place in a long lineage of wolf books.... [T]here are cherished, striking images here…testament to the ever-flowing life force that is the wolf.

  — Rick Bass, New York Times Book Review

• Engaging... a must read for researchers, citizen scientists, and visitors to Yellowstone, where the story of the wolves continues to evolve.

  — Science  

• [American Wolf] is a startlingly intimate portrait of the intricate, loving, human-like interrelationships that govern wolves in the wild, as observed in real time by a cadre of dedicated wolf-watchers—in the end, a drama of lupine love, care, and grief.

  — Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City and Dead Wake 

• Wild, poignant, and compelling, American Wolf is an important, beautifully wrought book about animals, about values, and about living on this earth.

  — Susan Orlean, author of The Orchid Thief and Rin Tin Tin

• A transcendent tale of the American West.

  — S. C. Gwynne, author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Rebel Yell

• Gripping and fascinating! Wolf versus wolf, wolf versus man, man versus man.

  — Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale and Hag-Seed (via Twitter)

• In this vibrant work of nonfiction, a Texas Monthly writer goes into the mind—and heart—of a wolf. He tells the remarkable true story of O-Six, a wolf brought back to the Rockies by conservationists, as she fights hunters, cattle ranchers, and her own species for survival.

  — Entertainment Weekly

• [American Wolf] reads like a novel... a testament to the genius of Blakeslee’s tautly constructed narrative.

  — Outside

• Blakeslee takes readers into the snowy [Lamar Valley], and deep into a genuinely human tale told with the energy and verve of a bestselling thriller. A tight, dense narrative, American Wolf races along like a predator on the hunt.

  — Texas Observer

• A masterful and elegant tale.

  — Associated Press

• Beautiful, detailed... [American Wolf] centers on the rise, reign, and family life of O-Six, matriarch of the Lamar Canyon pack and so well-known to park visitors that the New York Times gave her an obituary.

  — Publisher's Weekly (starred) 

• “The fight... [over] Yellowstone’s wolves is embodied in O-Six’s story, told with great immediacy and empathy in a tale that reads like fiction. This one will grab readers and impel them into the heart of the conflict.

  — Booklist (starred)

• Utterly compelling.... Blakeslee’s masterly use of fiction writing techniques to ratchet up the tension will hook a wide swath of readers.

  —          Library Journal (starred)

• “A savory blend of hardcore journalism, biodiversity analysis, weather and terrain reporting and good old-fashioned storytelling... American Wolf is the tale of an extraordinary wolf and those absorbed with her storied life.

  — Shelf Awareness

• Nate Blakeslee has achieved the Jack London-like feat of creating a great story whose main character is an animal.

  — Nicholas Lemann, author of The Big Test and Redemption

• There are so few wolves in the West that each one can cast a kind of enchantment. This fine book takes one animal, and uses it as a way to understand the vectors that whipsaw the last wild places. It will linger in your mind and heart.

  — Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Radio Free Vermont

• “American Wolf is an intimate and riveting book about America’s most iconic and embattled predator.... A wonderful and welcome addition to the pantheon of nature literature.

  — John Vaillant, author of The Tiger and The Golden Spruce

• “A well-rendered story... evenhanded but clearly and rightly on the side of the wolves.

  — Kirkus Reviews“Gorgeously written, and offering stunning insights into both animal and human nature, American Wolf is a masterly feat of science journalism.

• As in a great novel, we are swept along in a multi-generational saga involving matters of character, courtship, and shifting social relations.

  — Tom Kizzia, author of Pilgrim’s Wilderness  

• Heartbreaking front-line coverage of our war on the wild.... Blakeslee hauntingly gives the victims faces, families, and stories. A quietly angry, aching, important book.

  — Charles Foster, author of Being a Beast  

• A compelling environmental drama of the reintroduction of wolves to the Rockies, as clear-sighted on human politics as it is on wolf politics.

  — Neil Ansell, author of Deep Country  

• The Game of Thrones story of modern western wolves, [unfolding] in just as riveting a fashion. It is an absolutely mesmerizing read.

  — Dan Flores, author of Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History  

• American Wolf gives us true profiles of wolf lives lived in their actual families. And when humans get involved, the trajectory of their lives forever changes.

  — Carl Safina, author of Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel  

• Written with heart, but not sentimentality, American Wolf is nothing less than Shakespearean tragedy played out against the backdrop of our troubled relationship with nature.

  — J.B. MacKinnon, author of The Once and Future World

• [American Wolf] is about the compatibility and clash between man and environment, heritage and the future, politics and practice, and seemingly countless nuances that demonstrate the complexity of the West.

  — Idaho Statesman

• O-Six is the definition of an alpha—strong, cunning, and a protector through and through. Her life in the wild is constantly challenged by other wolves, cattle ranchers, and hunters. It’s a “cultural clash” that will leave you on the edge of your chair.

  — Departures

• [A] rich, poignant story of wolf recovery in Yellowstone and its impacts on the surrounding countryside and communities.

  — National Parks Traveler

• Blakeslee crafts a compelling narrative that allows him to explore in a profound and intimate way the cultural, political, social and economic factors that keep the presence of wolves in the West controversial.

  — International Wolf

• “Narrator Mark Bramhall’s gravelly voice is a perfect match for this timeless yet contemporary story of history and progress in the American West, featuring a particularly tenacious wolf known as O-Six…Bramhall’s steady narration moves smoothly from scenes describing wolf behavior to those detailing relevant legal history…Even without names, the wolves become quickly discernible with personalities and traits all their own.”

  — AudioFile

• “Seeing a wolf is exceptionally rare, and this book is as close as most readers will come.”

  — New Yorker

• “An ambitious look through the eyes of an endangered animal.”

  — New York Times Book Review

• “This vibrant work of nonfiction…goes into the mind—and heart—of a wolf…The remarkable true story of O-Six…as she fights hunters, cattle ranchers, and her own species for survival.”

  — Entertainment Weekly

• “A matriarch overthrown in what seems fairly described as a ‘putsch,’ marauding gangs running attacks into neighboring territory, an hours-long standoff with a grizzly, a discarded water bottle—a rarity in the wilderness of a national park—tossed around and protected like a prized new toy. The lives of the wolves in Yellowstone are often dramatic but are full of touching, tender moments too, as Nate Blakeslee vividly writes in American Wolf.”

  — Los Angeles Times

• “Reads like a novel…a testament to the genius of Blakeslee’s tautly constructed narrative.”

  — Outside magazine