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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
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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
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"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
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“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
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“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
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Engaging... a must read for researchers, citizen scientists, and visitors to Yellowstone, where the story of the wolves continues to evolve.
— Science
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[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
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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
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A transcendent tale of the American West.
— S. C. Gwynne, author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Rebel Yell
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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)
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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
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[American Wolf] reads like a novel... a testament to the genius of Blakeslee’s tautly constructed narrative.
— Outside
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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
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A masterful and elegant tale.
— Associated Press
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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)
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“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)
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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)
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“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
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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
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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
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“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
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“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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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[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
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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
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[A] rich, poignant story of wolf recovery in Yellowstone and its impacts on the surrounding countryside and communities.
— National Parks Traveler
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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
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“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
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“Seeing a wolf is exceptionally rare, and this book is as close as most readers will come.”
— New Yorker
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“An ambitious look through the eyes of an endangered animal.”
— New York Times Book Review
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“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
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“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
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“Reads like a novel…a testament to the genius of Blakeslee’s tautly constructed narrative.”
— Outside magazine