A comprehensive account permeated by love for and understanding of wolves.
From a dedicated wolf observer and naturalist comes an admiring and detailed portrait of Wolf 8, a nervy runt who was bullied by his bigger brothers but who grew up to become the alpha male of his pack.
While the return of wolves to Yellowstone National Park has been widely reported in the media and written about in numerous books, McIntyre (A Society of Wolves, 1993, etc.) gives the story a special twist. In addition to chronicling his close tracking of the wolf packs in Yellowstone and noting their movements, he comments on their personalities, telling readers about their behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. The author had become a student of wolves before any were released into Yellowstone, and for 15 years, he awoke daily to watch them, recognizing them by sight and referring to dozens of individuals by the numbers assigned to them (at the beginning of the book, he includes a list of the “principal wolves”). In fact, as noted in an afterword, “from June 2000 to August 2015, [McIntyre] went out for 6,175 consecutive days.” The courageous behavior of one young gray wolf facing up to a grizzly bear caught his attention early on; in most chapters, the exploits of Wolf 8 are at the center of the narrative. He identifies strongly with this particular animal, drawing on his own memories of roughhousing play with a remote father and as a boy facing bullies. McIntyre exults in Wolf 8’s befriending of two young pups, which made him the mate of their mother, the alpha female of her pack. Refreshingly, the author does not anthropomorphize. As he notes, the wolves are still wild creatures, driven to breed and to kill, and he provides a relatively sentiment-free depiction of the inevitable decline and death of Wolf 8. Robert Redford provides the foreword.
A comprehensive account permeated by love for and understanding of wolves.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-77164-521-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Greystone Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2019
Aging is a universal human experience, yet even now a poorly understood one; Medina's book is an accessible summary of what we know. Medina (Bioengineering/Univ. of Washington) begins with a brief description of his own mother's life and last days, which inspired him to investigate the aging process. The text then turns to a discussion of the biological meaning of aging and death. A key point is that death is not the simultaneous failure of an entire organism; it is the failure of some key component, such as the heart or lungs, that brings about the end. Medina thus devotes the middle portion of the book to an examination of how each system of the body changes with age. The skin wrinkles, the bones weaken, the lungs lose their capacity to oxygenate blood. But the processes do not proceed at the same pace; half the nerve cells in the occipital cortex will die before a human reaches old age, but almost all those in the thalamus will survive. Vision and hearing deteriorate, but taste buds actually regenerate. Each chapter is introduced with a brief biography of a person whose death in some way illuminates the system under discussion and adds human interest: Goya for the brain, Elizabeth Barrett Browning for the heart, Casanova for the reproductive system. Finally, Medina looks at aging from the biochemical perspective. One theory suggests that aging is a result of cumulative errors in the reproduction of an organism's cells; another, that it is programmed into the genes and promoted by toxic waste products of metabolism. (There is good evidence for both.) Finally, strategies to combat aging are discussed: exercise, a moderated diet, the replacement of certain hormones that decrease with age. While no one has discovered a way to prevent aging and death, Medina ably brings together what we know about these inevitable processes and provides insight into possible avenues of future research. (47 line drawings)
Pub Date: April 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-521-46244-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Cambridge Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1996
This brilliantly written reconstruction of Sir Walter Raleigh's 1595 South American journey combines painstaking scholarship, vivid travelogue, and an intuitive sensitivity for the many meanings of the El Dorado myth. When Sir Walter Raleigh set out to find the ``golden city'' in what is now Venezuela, he was both seeking to regain the favor of Queen Elizabeth I and responding to a fascination that had gripped Europeans throughout the 16th century. English travel writer and historical biographer Nicholl (The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe, 1994, etc.) brings this six-week expedition to life by a critical use of the historical records, especially the accounts of Raleigh himself and of expedition member Thomas Sparry, and by the story of his own journey, accompanied by a British television crew, up the Orinoco River into the remote highlands that Raleigh described. Nicholl gives us his scholarly and experiential narratives in separate but parallel sections, and the result is a text that speaks to the reader on several levels. He describes in detail the preparations for the voyage, the crew, and Raleigh's dealings with his powerful backers. We hear how Raleigh obtained important information from a Spaniard he captured at Trinidad, and how he won the friendship of tribal kings, such as Toparimaca and Topiawari. Nicholl's own travelogue is full of humanity and incident. There is an eerie account of a village medicine man, and in a series of shantytowns we meet some present- day gold diggers and an eccentric hermit who throws light on the legendary American airman, Jimmy Angel, discoverer of longest waterfall in the world at the very site of Raleigh's projected El Dorado. Nicholl analyzes Raleigh's imagery and draws on his connection with Elizabethan alchemist Dr. Dee to explore his journey in Jungian terms as a psychological quest. A rare treat for both intellect and imagination. (illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: March 20, 1996
ISBN: 0-688-14600-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1996
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
