Colin Thubron, who chaired the judging panel, said of the winner:

'We admired Lone Wolf especially for the vividness and skill with which its author interweaves his thousand-mile trek in a wolf’s pawtracks with the seismic social and ecological changes that inform his way. This is a celebration of wildness and of its right to exist, but grounded in an unsentimental understanding of its cost to humans. It’s a beautifully written and far-reaching book.'

 

Sara Wheeler, one of the judges, said:

'In his wonderful Lone Wolf, Adam Weymouth explores "how to make meaning in a world that feels increasingly outside of my control". He takes his wandering wolf as a symbol of division, expressing empathy, in his pages, with stakeholders on both sides of the bitter conservation/extirpation divide. …Weymouth’s book seems to me to exemplify the requirements of the Sherborne Prize: it recognises unfathomable currents that flow beneath narrative and life.’