Book Review: Wolves on the Bridle Path by Tijs Goldschmidt

 

  Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Wolven op het ruiterpad.

I've seen this one at both the library and bookstores (in the animal non-fiction sections) for a while now, so I finally picked it up.

In this non-fiction book, we get a collection of essays Goldschmidt has written about various topics, mostly people, pieces of art (e.g. statues) or certain animals.

And that's it. Such a huge disappointment. There's barely any consistency when it comes to theme here, so it just feels like a largely random collection of essays thrown into a book without a cohesive theme. So it doesn't feel like a good "whole", just some random separate essays. Doesn't function well as a book.

That aside, this book was also just really not my thing. The writing voice was incredibly dry and dull to read, thus making the book incredibly boring to sit through. I didn't feel any passion from the author's writing voice about these subjects he was talking about.

Me being a wolf fan and reading a lot of wolf-centric books, I of course also hoped this book would largely focus on the species (you cannot blame me for this, just look at the title, cover image and the fact that it's in the animals and nature section of both our local libraries and bookstores). But of course, aside from two minor chapters, the book isn't about wolves at all but a wide array of topics with no thematic cohesion. So of course I was very disappointed by this. The wolf chapters were okay but even then Goldschmidt insisted on citing Shaun Ellis of all people, who is far from the most credible source when it comes to the realm of wolf knowledge.

I also spotted some errors in the book. Some have already been pointed out by other reviewers, but I myself spotted one where there was a mistyping of the word "wolf" (being "olf") and another one where it is said that King Louie in Disney's The Jungle Book sings "What a Wonderful World" (which he does not. He does in fact sing, but his song is called "I Wan'na be Like You"). 

So overall this was a dull and boring read with little to no thematic cohesion. Also for the love of god, stop putting wolves on your covers and in your book titles if your book is not about wolves. That's just bordering on false advertising, especially if it's also placed in the animal sections of the bookstore/library. 

Rating: 2/5