Product Description

This fascinating book charts the relationship between Mark Rowlands, a rootless philosopher, and Brenin, his well-travelled wolf. More than just an exotic pet, Brenin exerted an immense influence on Rowlands as both a person, and, strangely enough, as a philosopher, leading him to re-evaluate his attitude to love, happiness, nature and death. By turns funny (what do you do when your wolf eats your air-conditioning unit?) and poignant, this life-affirming book will make you reappraise what it means to be human.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25543 in Books
• Published on: 2008-11-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Review
'This year's most original and instructive work of popular philosophy' --Julian Baggini, Financial Times

Review
'An extraordinary memoir'

Review
`A powerfully subversive critique of the unexamined assumption that shape the way most philosophers ... think about animals and themselves'

Customer Reviews

Wonderful
I put this book on my Christmas list having read a couple of extracts in newspaper supplements; I'm very glad that I did.

The strange thing is that, because it felt like I'd read so much of the book in the published extracts, I felt I knew exactly what I was getting: a moving account of a man's experience living with a wolf. I nearly typed "owning" but, if you read the book, you will appreciate how inappropriate that term would be.

However, I was a long way off the mark in my expectations. Yes, the moving and funny accounts of life with an essentially wild animal were still there, there's definitely a wolf, but there's also the philosopher.

The author turns his expert mind on the experience of sharing 11 years of his life with Brenin to a wonderfully though-provoking extent. I found myself wanting to read the book to experience the journey of life with the wolf, but also wanting to check my progress to contemplate the issues on life and people raised.

It turns out living with a wolf shines a significant light on how we are as people. That Rowland's ultimate analysis of homo sapiens is somewhat unflattering (that our intelligence is driven by our need to understand our peers so that we can deceive them more and use them for our own purposes) doesn't make it wrong.

The book is both enlightening and uplifting and I recommend it whole-heartedly.

beer and rugby with a wolf
The author steers just the right side of sentimentality with the story of his pet wolf. Everyone who has some dumb animal as his best buddy will empathise. The background story of growing up from being a beer swilling rugby playing, party animal to full on mid life existential crisis monger is told simply and apparently honestly.

I loved it

Simply a wonderful read
In this book Mark Rowlands describes and relives his life experience with his companion wolf. Yes, not a pet but a companion. Like explained by Konrad Lorenz wolves are not like dogs, they are independent, mature animals in their own right and do not have the immature tendencies common to dogs. Dogs were bred for this tendency which is why the difference exists.

Rowlands is a philosopher but he is also very human and does not suffer from any kind of attempt to impose a philosophy on anyone. He simply lives his life and one of these experiences was with his wolf companion. This makes this book unique and worthwhile. The book is really a way of describing how it is possible to be a philosopher and a human being at once. So it is both full of his life as a philosopher and as the emotionally connected companion of a wolf. There are plenty of stories relating his experiences such as when Rowlands attempted to throw a stick to see if his wolf would fetch it, as he might have expected if he had a dog. Instead the the wolf just looked at him as if to say: "What, you want me to get that ? Are you crazy ?"

The book is also filled with Rowlands life as a person with all his weaknesses and strengths exposed. His tendency to drink too much, his nomadic life and inability to connect to his frequent girlfriends. Throughout, this is interspersed with his learning experiences as the companion of his wolf. Simply a wonderful read.