Promise Of The Wolves

The first in The Wolf Chronicles trilogy, brilliantly weaving together original research, lovable characters and a dynamic, thoroughly engaging plot, Promise of the Wolves is a historical adventure story in the tradition of Clan of the Cave Bear and Watership Down. Set 14,000 years ago in what is now Southern Europe, Promise of the Wolves is told from the point of view of Kaala, a young wolf born of a forbidden, mixed-blood litter. An outcast after her mother is exiled, Kaala struggles to earn her place in her pack. But her world is turned upside down when she rescues a human girl from drowning. Kaala and her young packmates begin hunting and playing with humans—risking expulsion from their pack and banishment from their home in the Wide Valley. When war between humans and wolves threatens, Kaala learns that she is the last in a long line of wolves charged with keeping watch over humans in order to prevent them from losing touch with nature and thus destroying the world. But to do so she must solve the great paradox of wolfkind: though wolves must always be with humans, humans cannot abide the presence of wolves, and every time the two come together, war ensues. Kaala must choose between safety for herself, her friends, and their human companions and the survival of her pack—and perhaps all of wolf and humankind.

The second installment in The Wolf Chronicles finds Kaala struggling with the consequences of forming the first mixed wolf-human pack.

Discovering her identity as the last of an ancient bloodline charged with preventing humanity from losing touch with nature, young wolf Kaala traces the shared evolution between canines and people and learns how wolves and dogs rendered humans the planet's dominant species. A first novel. 150,000 first printing.

Pre-eminent wolf photographer, Jim Brandenberg, immersed himself deep in the American woods to live close to and document wild timber wolves. This book of narrative and photographs portrays the wolf's story, exploring the history and future of wolves, as well as their link with humans.

In the winter of 2008-09, a new wolf family from the Pipestone Valley suddenly appeared in the Bow Valley of Banff National Park. Within a year, these new wolves had eliminated the Bow Valley wolves and established a dominance that would last for five years. As the climactic chapter in a twenty-year observational study of wolves in Banff National Park, respected wolf behaviour expert Günther Bloch and wildlife photographer John E. Marriott followed the Pipestones through the trials and tribulations of raising their family in one of the world's most heavily visited national parks.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • One million copies sold! “A deeply spiritual book [that] honors what is tough, smart and untamed in women.”—The Washington Post Book World Book club pick for Emma Watson’s Our Shared Shelf Within every woman there lives a powerful force, filled with good instincts, passionate creativity, and ageless knowing. She is the Wild Woman, who represents the instinctual nature of women. But she is an endangered species. For though the gifts of wildish nature belong to us at birth, society’s attempt to “civilize” us into rigid roles has muffled the deep, life-giving messages of our own souls. In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés unfolds rich intercultural myths, fairy tales, folk tales, and stories, many from her own traditions, in order to help women reconnect with the fierce, healthy, visionary attributes of this instinctual nature. Through the stories and commentaries in this remarkable book, we retrieve, examine, love, and understand the Wild Woman, and hold her against our deep psyches as one who is both magic and medicine. Dr. Estés has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul.

Many Japanese once revered the wolf as Oguchi no Magami, or Large-Mouthed Pure God, but as Japan began its modern transformation wolves lost their otherworldly status and became noxious animals that needed to be killed. By 1905 they had disappeared from the country. In this spirited and absorbing narrative, Brett Walker takes a deep look at the scientific, cultural, and environmental dimensions of wolf extinction in Japan and tracks changing attitudes toward nature through Japan's long history. Grain farmers once worshiped wolves at shrines and left food offerings near their dens, beseeching the elusive canine to protect their crops from the sharp hooves and voracious appetites of wild boars and deer. Talismans and charms adorned with images of wolves protected against fire, disease, and other calamities and brought fertility to agrarian communities and to couples hoping to have children. The Ainu people believed that they were born from the union of a wolflike creature and a goddess. In the eighteenth century, wolves were seen as rabid man-killers in many parts of Japan. Highly ritualized wolf hunts were instigated to cleanse the landscape of what many considered as demons. By the nineteenth century, however, the destruction of wolves had become decidedly unceremonious, as seen on the island of Hokkaido. Through poisoning, hired hunters, and a bounty system, one of the archipelago's largest carnivores was systematically erased. The story of wolf extinction exposes the underside of Japan's modernization. Certain wolf scientists still camp out in Japan to listen for any trace of the elusive canines. The quiet they experience reminds us of the profound silence that awaits all humanity when, as the Japanese priest Kenko taught almost seven centuries ago, we "look on fellow sentient creatures without feeling compassion."

An unintended experiment teaches real-life lessons about life’s intricate interconnections. In the 1800s, the American government decided to eliminate threats to livestock near Yellowstone National Park. By 1926, there were no gray wolves left in the park. This set off a cascade of devastating changes to virtually every part of the park’s ecosystem, and the once-thriving landscape was soon in distress. Then, in an effort to reverse course, gray wolves were reintroduced in 1995. In time, animal populations start to stabilize, waterways are restored and, miraculously, health returns to the park. This remarkable story of transformation is sure to captivate, and to inspire respect for nature’s surprisingly complex balancing act.