H is for Hawk

I adore this book because it is so unique—I’ve never read anything quite this specific or niche which seems so all-encompassing.

It is the story of a life lost, and a life found. Of a father that dies and how the recovery of his daughter is tied up with the start of a new relationship—with a goshawk.

At the outset, the author is so wonderfully eloquent on all aspects of loss; the sudden jarring sense of confusion when a person dies and you have their possessions still in your hands; the struggle to keep in touch with reality… show more.

I often immerse myself in nature when life gets hard. Helen MacDonald takes that impulse to a whole other level in this gorgeously written book about her obsession with training a goshawk named Mabel after her life is upended by the sudden death of her father. I loved how the intensity of training this wild and dangerous bird of prey matched, in so many ways, the intensity of navigating grief. I don’t think MacDonald would recommend her path as one for everyone, but as someone who knew falconry and whose father had taught her to seek out her nature obsessions,… show more.

The awe this book evokes in me has to do with the interpenetrating mysteries of wildness and death. It pairs two subjects—falconry and grief—that seem an unlikely pairing until you witness Macdonald plow her despair over her father’s sudden death into raising and training a goshawk she names Mabel.

I’m a sucker for anything about birds and the human-animal connection. Birds of prey especially fascinate me. But I doubt I’d have the courage to hoist one on my gloved hand or the trust to let her fly free and call her back. Thankfully, Macdonald’s searing and poetic memoir offers access… show more.

My heart, my head, and my very soul were informed about the healing power of nature while reading this perfectly wonderful memoir. While I adore memoirs that portray humans and what we learn from animals, nowhere have I witnessed someone returning from grief, as well as in these masterful pages. 

Macdonald, an experienced falconer, trains a goshawk while struggling to fathom her father’s death. Reading this book helped me realize how many forms hope can take, not the least being the courage to stare down grief and use it to form a loving relationship with a bird meant for hunting and freedom.

Macdonald took me into the world of falconry and its day-to-day demands, and she introduced me to the writing of T.H. White, a man broken by life and trying (but failing) to become a falconer to a goshawk. This is a beautiful, tragic, uplifting book, raw in emotion… show more.

Gorgeous writing; nature, humans, birds, all the things alive. Poetic, and funny at the same time.

This is a book you wouldn't want to lend to a friend, but you might want to buy it for a friend! It’s a genre-defying memoir of a grieving daughter that I found inspirational and validating in the wake of my own parents' deaths. Helen MacDonald loses her father and embarks on a journey to find, adopt, and train a goshawk, one of the fiercest and most feral predators on Earth...a remarkable metaphor for her own wild grief.

As her relationship evolves with the goshawk, Mabel, they learn together the beauty and terror of being alive. I found great inspiration… show more.

I love this book for a number of reasons, perhaps chiefly because it’s so hard to pin down. What is it? Part memoir, part biography, part meditation on grief, part instructional guide to falconry.

Helen Macdonald interweaves her own story of dealing with her father’s death with a historical account of the tortured life of T. H. White (known best as the author of The Once and Future King). In juxtaposing these stories across time and space, we are able to see the blurred lines between bereavement, madness, and social isolation. I will hold forever in my mind Macdonald’s… show more.

This took me way outside my own experience. I’m drawn to books that bring together different areas of knowledge, and here, a memoir about bereavement intertwines with the training of a goshawk and a preoccupation with the writer T E White.

I admired its rhythm as one strand was plaited over the next. It meant that a book which talks a lot about patience, pain, and stillness never lost its momentum, and I kept reading. I knew nothing about falconry, with its ancient history and medieval-sounding language, so it ticked my ‘new vocabulary’ box, too. 

I read this book when it was first published in 2014 and have revisited it many times since. 

My father died in 2012, and this book connected me to how I was feeling over my own loss. Helen’s words comforted me and consoled me, never placating or patronising, but placed so perfectly on the page that they made me feel she was reading me, not the other way round. The feeling of being set apart from others for a while, needing nature and self-nurture before venturing back into life.

I have recommended it to friends and clients, especially those who… show more.