The New Wilderness
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The New Wilderness Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Diane Cook (Author), Stacey Glemboski (Narrator), HarperAudio (Publisher)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 2,353 ratings
Editors' pick Best Literature & Fiction
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A Washington Post, NPR, and Buzzfeed Best Book of the Year Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

“More than timely, the novel feels timeless, solid, like a forgotten classic recently resurfaced — a brutal, beguiling fairy tale about humanity. But at its core, The New Wilderness is really about motherhood, and about the world we make (or unmake) for our children.” (Washington Post)

"5 of 5 stars. Gripping, fierce, terrifying examination of what people are capable of when they want to survive in both the best and worst ways. Loved this." (Roxane Gay via Twitter)

Margaret Atwood meets Miranda July in this wildly imaginative debut novel of a mother's battle to save her daughter in a world ravaged by climate change. A prescient and suspenseful book from the author of the acclaimed story collection, Man V. Nature.

Bea’s five-year-old daughter, Agnes, is slowly wasting away, consumed by the smog and pollution of the overdeveloped metropolis that most of the population now calls home. If they stay in the city, Agnes will die. There is only one alternative: the Wilderness State, the last swath of untouched, protected land, where people have always been forbidden. Until now.

Bea, Agnes, and 18 others volunteer to live in the Wilderness State, guinea pigs in an experiment to see if humans can exist in nature without destroying it. Living as nomadic hunter-gatherers, they slowly and painfully learn to survive in an unpredictable, dangerous land, bickering and battling for power and control as they betray and save one another. But as Agnes embraces the wild freedom of this new existence, Bea realizes that saving her daughter’s life means losing her in a different way. The farther they get from civilization, the more their bond is tested in astonishing and heartbreaking ways.

At once a blazing lament of our contempt for nature and a deeply humane portrayal of motherhood and what it means to be human, The New Wilderness is an extraordinary novel from a one-of-a-kind literary force.

Previous page
  1. Listening Length
    12 hours and 46 minutes
  2. Author
    Diane Cook
  3. Narrator
    Stacey Glemboski
  4. Audible release date
    August 11, 2020
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    HarperAudio
  7. ASIN
    B081ZG1QBF
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 12 hours and 46 minutes
Author Diane Cook
Narrator Stacey Glemboski
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date August 11, 2020
Publisher HarperAudio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B081ZG1QBF
Best Sellers Rank #61,584 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#425 in Dystopian Science Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)
#716 in Alternate History Science Fiction (Books)
#1,291 in Family Life Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
2,353 global ratings
Beautifully written & Truly Impactful!
4 Stars
Beautifully written & Truly Impactful!
The New Wilderness is a book that I'm not going to forget anytime soon. I really loved the survival aspect of the story. A group of people agree to live in the final wilderness left in a world that has almost completely destroyed nature. They have an entire manual filled with rules about how they can live. They can't stay in one place for long, they must bring all trash with them, they must check in at ranger posts, the list goes on and on. When they show up at their scheduled post, and are told to head to a new post that they have never visited before, the group is set on a course that will change their lives.I really enjoyed the journey in this story. I enjoyed the character dynamics and self-discovery of the characters. I thought this was beautifully written and truly a story that will whisk you away into the pages!I was provided a gifted copy of this book for free. I am leaving my review voluntarily.
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Top reviews from the United States

Tom Alaerts
5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable and strongly recommended.
Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2020
Verified Purchase
I expect that this novel be on several awards And best of the year lists.
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook takes place in a dystopian, nearly apocalyptical future where civilisation, living in a giant city crumbles under climate change and pollution.
But a small group of people take part of an experiment to live in the last, vast wilderness, to demonstrate that people can live in nature without destroying it. Truly becoming nomadic hunters & gatherers, remotely monitored for any transgressions. The first half of the book follows Bea, who comes with her young daughter to the wilderness as a last chance for survival of the girl who is dying from an air pollution caused illness.
The novel is absolutely brilliant, terrifying, a study of motherly love, it is also heartbreaking with terrible betrayals, and suspenseful - all this following trekking people who have limited contact with the decaying civilisation. A story without compromise as you will notice during the hard hitting opening pages. The novel also shows how the young girl becomes more primal, raw and attuned to nature over time.
all this is not written as a survivalist pamphlet, it is much more literary in approach. In that sense it is more in the style of that great modern apocalyptic novel Station Eleven - the author of which wrote an enthusiastic blurb about The New Wilderness.
Apparently it is already being produced as a TV series, not sure if it can capture the intensity.
In short, absolutely recommend, a true discovery that will linger long in the mind.
23 people found this helpful
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LilyWoolf
4.0 out of 5 stars Complicated mother daughter/dynamics, power trips and exodus from polluted city
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2021
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A believable plot as 20 pioneers are forced to flee a polluted city to save themselves and their kids. While some reviewers found this book slow and repetitive I think that was intentional to show the monotony mixed with danger the Originalists faced in frequent moving and fighting to survive. Bea is a complex character who left all the comforts she knew to save Agnes and then aligned with the group's leader to protect her husband and daughter. She did many non-perfect-mom things but all led to protecting her kid.
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Megan Gilbert
3.0 out of 5 stars enjoyable read, but loses you
Reviewed in the United States on June 21, 2022
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I felt overall that this book is focused mainly on a mother daughter relationship and less on the actual plot that is set up. Not a satisfactory end, completely anticlimactic and lost me. It was a shame because up until then it was one of my favorite reads. Now it’s just mediocre
2 people found this helpful
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Squatch
5.0 out of 5 stars It’s a good book!
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2021
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I bought this book a couple of months ago and really hadn’t intended to review it, but upon reading many of the negative reviews, I thought I’d speak up. I bought this book for myself, and I enjoyed it so much I recommended it to my wife and she loved it, too. And I came to Amazon today to gift it as an ebook to my sister. If you like dystopian/utopian fiction, it’s a good book! And more than that, my wife and I had a really good time discussing it. We read it a bit differently, and we enjoyed talking it through. There are some parts that are quite stark, and brutal, so be warned, but it was a good read that captured my attention (sort of reminded me of Peter Heller’s Dog Stars) and I think it’s worth a read!

There are points at which I read books because the author’s writing is beautiful, and I noted that some reviewers stated that the writing wasn’t done well, and that wasn’t my experience. I don’t know that I was captivated by beautiful sentences so much as I was captivated by a compelling story.
16 people found this helpful
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Sammers
4.0 out of 5 stars Haunting
Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2021
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Haunting and enchanting at the same time. A lesson of the world to come? A world we are dooming by our own choices? Lord of the Flies meets Mad Max? I don't know how to describe this novel. The wonders of the human drive to survive, to protect the young, to survive even in the harshest of environments. All in all, I enjoyed this novel but it left me more disturbed than satisfied. But. I suspect that was the author's intent.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Story, A New Classic
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2020
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Above all else, this is just a great story - I had a hard time putting it down. It’s also flawlessly written and feels like a new classic. Many reviews here describe this story as dystopian, which is fair, but in my opinion, the focus of this story is human relationships, mother-daughter relationships in particular. This is not a book I would normally pick up, but I’m so glad I did. Best thing I’ve read all year.

PS - the reddish-hot-pink used on the jacket’s back should only be used with a pair of 3D glasses. Who can read that?
One person found this helpful
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Albion Bob
4.0 out of 5 stars A few wanderers in a dystopia neat Yellowstone
Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2021
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It is a light read about when population gets so high that even Wyoming is full of people. A select few are allowed to return to the land and wander like native nomads. There are some "Lord of the Flies" problems, plus the outsiders running the experiment keep interfering and breaking premises and changing rules. Eventually, the experiment shuts down but most don't want to be trucked back to a smoky city.
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Lorraine Reichard
2.0 out of 5 stars Repetitive with a silly ending.
Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2020
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I was very disappointed by this book. I'm sure glad it was a free Prime read. It was very repetitive, and the characters were very shallow. The ending was so sudden. Even if there was a sequel I wouldn't buy it.
10 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Valerie M Schneider
1.0 out of 5 stars Poor quality
Reviewed in Mexico on December 18, 2020
Verified Purchase
This product is a "for profit" poor adaptation of a magnifier page.
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Norman Wolfish
3.0 out of 5 stars Dystopian future
Reviewed in Canada on September 20, 2020
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A dystopian future as seen through the eyes of an 8 year old girl but with a bland account of events. None of the excitement, description, concern, pathos or interest of similar previous novels
One person found this helpful
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Alysson Oliveira
4.0 out of 5 stars Um experimento natural
Reviewed in Brazil on September 6, 2020
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Um grupo de desconhecidos forma uma comunidade para viver isolados da civilização num lugar onde a natureza é preservada. O romance é narrado do ponto de vista de uma mulher – que faz parte dos Originalists, os primeiros a formar o grupo – e sua filha, ao longo de alguns anos. Tudo começa como um experimento: podem os humanos viverem na natureza sem a destruir? Bea, a protagonista, aceitou participar disso para salvar a vida de sua filha, cada vez mais doente por causa do ar poluído.

A autora Diane Cook não tem respostas simples, e o livro seria mais pobre se as tivesse. Tudo é ambíguo, e tem lados positivos e negativos. Ela não é daquelas radicais que desprezam tudo que a civilização conquistou em nome da natureza, e também sabe que regredir a uma espécie de estado natural da existência não consiste em colher frutinhas e dormir debaixo de árvores. É um trabalho árduo e arriscado. Ao jogar com o tempo e a perspectiva da narração, ela desestabiliza nossa percepção de quem são, onde estão e quando estão suas personagens, criando um estranhamento ao longo da narrativa, possivelmente próximo com o que essas mesmas figuras enfrentam.

Longlist do Booker Prize 2020.
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Madeleine Daly
5.0 out of 5 stars A triumph
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2021
Verified Purchase
Well, what an absolute triumph of a novel. I spent a fair bit of the book weeping, which is more of a compliment than it initially appears. This book exposes humanity in all its many facets; cruel, animalistic, selfish, and destructive, but also loving, enduring, awe-inspiring. Ms Cook has evoked every character's sense of longing in each sentence of The New Wilderness. While the dystopian City remains a background comment on the ongoing environmental crisis, the core of the book focuses on humanity and our relationships with each other and the planet.

A quick read, not an easy read, but honestly one of the best books I've read in a while.
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Aloka
4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and brutal
Reviewed in India on October 21, 2020
Verified Purchase
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
.
This book attracted me the most when it made it to the booker long list and then when it was shorlisted I knew I had to read it .
.
Set in the future where humans have wrecked the planet to such an extent that living in the city is impossible there is one last wilderness state where no one is allowed into until a group of 20 are introduced in it to live as nomads and where they are monitored from afar to see how they fare .
.
Such a future is not unimaginable which makes it very hard hitting . Humans in the city and the group we get a closer look at , the bunch surviving in the wilderness have started to look at death as a non dramatic event and there are no emergency rooms in the city nor do the people in the wilderness shed much of a tear when one of their own dies . Their way of life in the wilderness is shown in a very brutal and vivid way .
.
The focus is on ruthless survival and how these people become part of the land and the animals. How they manage to survive in the wild is portrayed well. We see most of the book from the perspective of Agnes a girl who came with her mother to the wilderness. Her mother Bea left the city to come here as Agnes was very ill and would not survive there and there is an undercurrent of resentment and love throughout both conflicting each other .
.
The mother daughter portrayal made more difficult under the circumstances is very well done and the book was gripping. I couldn’t put it down.
.
It was not a perfect book there were too many holes so to speak in the plot that didn’t sit too well with me. Whether it deserves a Booker nod over mantel or not I cannot say or speculate but I did enjoy reading this and I am very glad it made the shortlist so that I read it.
Customer image
Aloka
4.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and brutal
Reviewed in India on October 21, 2020
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
.
This book attracted me the most when it made it to the booker long list and then when it was shorlisted I knew I had to read it .
.
Set in the future where humans have wrecked the planet to such an extent that living in the city is impossible there is one last wilderness state where no one is allowed into until a group of 20 are introduced in it to live as nomads and where they are monitored from afar to see how they fare .
.
Such a future is not unimaginable which makes it very hard hitting . Humans in the city and the group we get a closer look at , the bunch surviving in the wilderness have started to look at death as a non dramatic event and there are no emergency rooms in the city nor do the people in the wilderness shed much of a tear when one of their own dies . Their way of life in the wilderness is shown in a very brutal and vivid way .
.
The focus is on ruthless survival and how these people become part of the land and the animals. How they manage to survive in the wild is portrayed well. We see most of the book from the perspective of Agnes a girl who came with her mother to the wilderness. Her mother Bea left the city to come here as Agnes was very ill and would not survive there and there is an undercurrent of resentment and love throughout both conflicting each other .
.
The mother daughter portrayal made more difficult under the circumstances is very well done and the book was gripping. I couldn’t put it down.
.
It was not a perfect book there were too many holes so to speak in the plot that didn’t sit too well with me. Whether it deserves a Booker nod over mantel or not I cannot say or speculate but I did enjoy reading this and I am very glad it made the shortlist so that I read it.
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11 people found this helpful
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