title: Dreaming of Wolves: Adventures in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania
author: Alan E. Sparks
description: <span id="caseCorrespondence_19238769685_text">'Life flashes past many eyes: resident, tourist, voyageur, even those of wolves. <em>Dreaming of Wolves </em>provides introspection through the eyes of a wolf. Alan's journey explores an inward look at mid-life crises, personal feeling, community economics, ethnic survival, cultural bias, and national politics while trying to [understand the life] of a pack of Romanian wolves. To know life, his life, the author travels to a remote, foreign setting seeking knowledge about wolves, and learns about himself. Yes, it is a travelogue, a personal adventure, but it is also a narrative explaining wolf ecology and behavior versus rural cultural integrity and history. Read it to understand wolves and to understand people at the delicate interface were a few wolves exist almost secretively next to rural people still attached to their lands and agricultural practices. I recommend Alan's work not only as a natural history reference but for showing that we can exist with wild animals even as planet earth approaches an overflowing human population.' -- Dr. James C. Halfpenny, President, A Naturalist's World and author of <em>Yellowstone Wolves in the Wild, Field Guide to Mammal Tracking in North America, Winter: An Ecological Handbook</em><br /></span><br />[Provides] rare insight into the behavior of wolves, as well as a close-up look at life in the backcountry and small towns of the Carpathian Mountains. The authors experiences tracking wolves, combined with the people he meets and his descriptions of the locale, make for a compelling and invigorating story. Sparks writes well, even eloquently at times A thoroughly enjoyable read for animal lovers and explorers alike. -- Kirkus Discoveries<br /><br /><span id="span_contact_Locked_A2ZU9JFKZ80XX" style="display: inline;">"This is indeed [a] book written by an incredible observer of character and landscape, a sensitive listener and ultimately a passionate conservationist Buy it, read it carefully. It's a book I will not be letting anyone borrow. It has a heart and a very powerful one..." -- Wolf Print Magazine (UK)<br /><br /></span>"As purposeful as a wolf's gait through a Draconian night, the literary potency of this book strikes direct registry into our human cellular connection with the way of wolves. Over 200 thoroughly researched pages offer a humbling, humorous, and fascinating penetration into a rare Transylvanian world exquisitely unveiled through intricately woven themes of wolves, humans, and the dance of consciousness which unites all beings..." -- Steve Ilg, author of <em>Total Body Transformation</em> and founder of WholisticFitness.com<br /><br />"An entertaining and truly inspirational story... Alan Sparks teaches us to not settle for the status quo and to live life as an adventure!" -- Don Strankowski, president Ascend Career and Life Strategies and author of <em>Get Hired!</em><br /> <em></em>
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  _Dear Readers,_
  
  
  
  
  
  Over the past few years, I have received thousands of letters asking for a
  reunion of the Carpathian characters. I resisted the idea for a long time,
  uncertain how one could bring so many vivid and larger-than-life characters
  together in the same book. It seemed a daunting task. Then one evening, I was
  sitting around a fireplace talking with some author friends about the mess
  we’d made of the dinner that night. We’d rented a house together to work, and
  unfortunately, some of us were a little lax on the cooking skills. (I’m not
  mentioning names here or raising my hand, but a few of the disasters depicted
  in this book actually did happen, sadly enough to say.) We were laughing so
  hard, and the idea of a Christmas party where the Carpathians cooked for their
  friends was born.
  
  
  
  
  
  I pitched the idea to my editor as a special thank-you gift book at Christmas
  time for my readers. I was very excited to have a fun, lighthearted book to
  