markrowlandsauthor.com

The paperback is due out in May 2009

And the US edition is published by Pegasus books in April 2009..

So far WOLF has sold translation rights in 11 languages..

Spanish translation (Seix Barral – published March 2009).
Italian translation (Mondadori).
Portuguese (Brazil) translation (Editora Objetiva).
Chinese (simple) translation (Jinghua Publishing House).
Chinese (complex) translation (Rye-Field)
French translation (Editions Belfond).
German translation (Rogner and Bernhard – published March 2009).
Dutch translation (De Bezige Bij – published March 2009).
Swedish translation (Forum).
Portuguese (Portugal) translation (Lua de Papal)
Korean translation TBC

Reviews of WOLF … ‘Mark Rowlands has given us that rarest of things--a book that takes the reader beyond the human world, while exploring the deepest human emotions. This moving account of the life he lived with an adopted wolf will be recognised as a seminal work of philosophy that forces us to re-evaluate our view of the human animal’. John Gray, Professor of European Thought, LSE; author of Straw Dogs and Black Mass

‘The Philosopher and the Wolf has been one of the most intense reading experiences of my life. There is hardly a sentence in the book that did not engage me, stop me, make me think. It is a profound and beautiful book.’ Jeffrey Masson, author of When Elephants Weep and The Pig Who Sang to the Moon

‘An absolute stunner of a book. Impossible not to be moved by the painfully personal narrative and the depth of reflection. Just enthralling and unputdownable.’ Andrew Linzey, Professor of Theology, University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, author of Animal Theology and Why Animal Suffering Matters

‘The Philosopher and the Wolf is a wonderful book. It's rare that a professor lets his hair down and weaves sentiment, heart, and love into deeper and supposedly more objective academic issues. Mark Rowlands does just this and I will be sharing his book widely.’ Marc Bekoff, Professor of Biology, University of Colorado, author of Wild Justice and Minding Animals

‘Rarely has a single animal inspired such deep reflections on morality, mortality, and misanthropy…a human memoir that reads like a tormented love affair with its animal star." Frans de Waal, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior, Emory University; author of Chimpanzee Politics and Our Inner Ape

‘The Philosopher and the Wolf is an astonishing book, both heartbreaking and heart lifting. Mark Rowlands’ experience of living with a wolf leads him to examine what it is to be human. In general biologists write books of this kind, but as Rowlands is a philosopher, his perspective is profoundly original. The book is a memoir of the author’s day-to-day life with a wolf that leads to a meditation on subjects such as human evil and the pursuit of happiness. Above all, this book is a love story that only a philosopher is able to explain and only a wolf is worthy of.’ Jennifer Clement, author of The Widow Basquiat and The Poison that Fascinates

‘…. This year’s most original and instructive work of popular philosophy … remarkable portrait of the bond that can exist between a human being and a beast … [Rowlands is] a rare contemporary philosopher who is a able to learn from everything he experiences in life, not just books and academic journals. This is what makes The Philosopher and the Wolf so refreshing. There is no shortage of writers trying to persuade us that philosophy can help illuminate life, but they rarely show us how life illuminates philosophy.’ Julian Baggini, Financial Times (UK)

‘Outsiders together, then, roaming the continents, Rowlands and Brenin … cut a dramatic, sometimes outlandish, but always riveting swathe through the text. Rowlands' clarity of thought and his honesty (often portraying his own misdeeds), are what make one's hitching a ride on this journey a mostly intriguing and seamless ride. Brenin's ghost is palpably present, at times deeply moving. "This is my attempt to speak for the wolf," Rowlands wrote in chapter one. He has written the howl.’ Tom Adair, The Scotsman (UK)

‘Rowlands’ memoir is life-affirming, engrossing, thoughtful, and moving … The Philosopher and the Wolf could become a philosophical cult classic.’ Mark Vernon, Times Literary Supplement (UK)

‘The Philosopher and the Wolf is an unusual book: not quite an autobiography (a lot of the time its subject cedes the limelight to his four-legged companion), nor straightforwardly a work of philosophy (as Rowlands acknowledges, it smells a bit too much of real life to pass muster with his professional colleagues). It is perhaps best described as the autobiography of an idea, or rather a set of related ideas, about the relationship between human and non-human animals.’ Jonathan Derbyshire, The Guardian (UK)

‘The Philosopher and the Wolf is … a remarkably touching tale of nature, humanity, and the potential of each to transform the other, hopefully into something other than mincemeat.’ Nina Power, New Humanist (UK)

‘ … an extraordinary memoir … this is real literature,, moving and profound.’ Val Hennessy, Daily Mail (UK)

‘The Philosopher and the Wolf is a powerfully subversive critique of the unexamined assumptions that shape the way most philosophers - along with most people - think about animals and themselves. John Gray, Literary Review (UK)

‘It is truly one of the great texts in modern English; certainly of the last half century … The Philosopher and the Wolf is not just a great read, a great memoir, nor even a great book. It is all of those things, but, if it can just get enough readers, I think it can take on a life of its own, and become a book of sustained and continued philosophic and personal influence. Rowlands’ book is a masterful work that deserves to be seen as a classic that combines the highest and broadest of human achievement and art … I urge readers of this review to buy the book, read the book, and thank me later.’ Dan Schneider, www.blogcritics.com (US)

‘ … more testosterone than an older cat-keeping lady can relate to … ’ Sunday Times (UK)

‘Mark Rowlands’ The Philosopher and the Wolf is a profoundly anti-humanist book, and therein lies its merit and its force … Rowlands succeeds remarkably well in engaging the reader. Largely, this is because of the emotional intensity of the narrative … [The Philosopher and the Wolf] challenges the anthropomorphism that Claude Lévi Strauss elsewhere characterizes as the ‘growing stupidity of man in front of himself’. At a time when the inability of human beings to see beyond their own species has engendered a global catastrophe, Rowlands offers a renewed understanding of what it means to be human by focusing on what it means to be animal. To this extent, it may well be that the lesson of the wolf is one our time badly needs to learn.’ James Carney, Sunday Business Post (Ireland)

‘A spur-of-the-moment decision to buy a wolf cub changed Mark Rowlands’s life. From that moment on he found human company never quite matched up.’ Daily Telegraph (UK)

‘This fascinating and stimulating story of integrating a full-blood wolf into the life of a philosophy professor veers between the profound and the hilarious … touching and poignant … anyone who has had to train a large and extremely powerful canine will find Rowlands’ philosophizing invaluable.’ Morning Star (UK)

‘Now here is a book I did love! Profound, moving, extremely well written and yet instantly accessible … The book is outstanding both for its content and for the depth of its reflection … wonderful book … and fortunately its author is able to articulate his thoughts particularly well … he is also a marvellous storyteller, and the tales of the eleven years he spent with Brenin are told with told with great warmth and humour and are just sheer delight. This is a most wonderful book; a book which will make you laugh and cry, but above all else it is a book to really make you think! Timeless Books (Aus).

‘By turns moving and funny, philosophy professor Mark Rowlands’ account of his life shared with a wolf called Brenin offers every reason to look again at how we view other animals – including human beings. Some have criticised its masculine bent, but you don’t master a wolf with pure reason and touchy-feely emotions. Neither can you learn the lessons Rowlands did by being overtly scared of a wolf’s power. By understanding his own nature as well as having some grasp of Brenin’s, Rowlands writes with real power of a profoundly intense and rewarding relationship. It may not be overstating anything to say the book makes human emotion easier to access.’ Bournemouth Echo (UK)

‘Mark Rowlands is a professor of philosophy with a sense of humour, a passion for making others aware of "the wonders of philosophy" (as he calls them) and, for a decade or so, he shared his life with a wolf … his philosophizing is rarely boring. Mark Rowland's has an acute and well-trained philosophical mind but it does not prevent him from being a good story-teller. And, of course, life with Brenin provided him with a wonderful store of stories. So, here is a book which will entertain you and make you think. It is not a book for those who just want cute stories about a wolf, but it is a book which is, in turns, funny, fascinating, curious, profound and most unusual.’ www.rec.arts.books.com

‘Animal lovers or not, Nietzsche-lovers or not, readers will admire how Rowlands, a philosophy professor at the University of Miami, interweaves essential philosophical questions with charming anecdotes of raising his pet wolf, Brenin … Rowlands is eminently likable and even laugh-out-loud funny … Rowlands’s gruff humor, erudition, honest assessments of himself and the world around him, and his all-out affection for his “pack” result in a book that is surprisingly thoughtful and frequently poignant.’ Publishers Weekly (US)

‘A snarly misanthrope, Rowlands recovered his own humanity by loving a noble beast and (with a little help from Aristotle, Descartes, and Jack Daniels) learning to howl at the moon.’ O Magazine (US)

‘A moving and often unsettling memoir …’ London Review of Books (UK)

‘ … a remarkable book …’ Andover Advertiser (UK)

‘It is funny, engrossing (as an adventure yarn), heartbreaking, enchanting and often disturbing and almost always beautifully written … Rowlands’ book, however, is not just a narrative. Philosophical reflection, sometimes difficult and contentious, weaves, for the most part seamlessly, through it.’ Raymond Gaita, The Age (Aus)