Here are 5 books that No Way But Gentlenesse fans have personally recommended if you like
No Way But Gentlenesse.
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I come from a family of born storytellers but grew up to become an archaeologist, sensible and serious. Then, my parents’ deaths brought me to my knees. I knew I would not survive their loss in any form recognizable to me. My grief set me on a journey to understand and rekindle the special magic that they and my ancestors had brought to my life. Eventually, through reading books like these and learning to tell my own stories, I, the archaeologist and life-long rationalist, made my greatest discovery to date: the healing power of enchantment.
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 here because it taught me that you can talk about hard things in a lyrical, uplifting way, leaving your readers to soar on the last page, not jumping out of windows.
One of the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year
ON MORE THAN 25 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR LISTS: including TIME (#1 Nonfiction Book), NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine (10 Favorite Books), Vogue (Top 10), Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle (Top 10), Miami Herald, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top 10), Library Journal (Top 10), Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Slate, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot, Amazon (Top 20)
The instant New York Times bestseller and award-winning sensation, Helen Macdonald's story of adopting and raising one of…
I devoted most of my career to conservation charities and now write full-time. Besides my book Looking for the Goshawk, I've published regular articles about this species and the issues around it. In an age of increased awareness of the need for rewilding, the goshawk becomes especially interesting, although it receives little of the airtime given to other birds of prey, and mammals. If we are serious about fixing ecosystems and living with raw nature and having any credibility or moral compass when bemoaning nature loss in other parts of the world, we need to get real about the importance of accommodating keystone species like the goshawk.
Tired of humanity and keen to ‘rewild’ himself, T. H. White gave up his teaching job and bought a goshawk from Germany (they had been wiped out in Britain).
He set out to ‘revert to a wild state’ and rented a cottage in the woods. His account of trying to ‘tame’ this hawk is vivid and intense, and not without controversy, as he used a medieval method that seemed cruel to some back then, and to most people now. This book is the only one written about goshawks here in the 20th century.
A complex and brilliant mind, White is better remembered for his Arthurian tales of young Wort and Merlin the Wizard, which helped inspire J. K. Rowling’s creation of Harry Potter. The Goshawk is considered a classic.
With a foreword by Helen Macdonald, author of the multi-award-winning H IS FOR HAWK.
'No hawk can be a pet. There is no sentimentality. In a way, it is the psychiatrist's art. One is matching one's mind against another mind with deadly reason and interest. One desires no transference of affection, demands no ignoble homage or gratitude. It is a tonic for the less forthright savagery of the human heart.'
First published in 1951, T.H. White's memoir describes with searing honesty his attempt to train a wild goshawk, a notoriously difficult bird to master. With no previous experience and only…
I devoted most of my career to conservation charities and now write full-time. Besides my book Looking for the Goshawk, I've published regular articles about this species and the issues around it. In an age of increased awareness of the need for rewilding, the goshawk becomes especially interesting, although it receives little of the airtime given to other birds of prey, and mammals. If we are serious about fixing ecosystems and living with raw nature and having any credibility or moral compass when bemoaning nature loss in other parts of the world, we need to get real about the importance of accommodating keystone species like the goshawk.
If you want chapter and verse on the science behind the northern goshawk (aka Accipiter gentilis) this is a good place to start. This title is a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the species, published in the respected series of Poyser monographs.
Kenward's book gives details of where the northern goshawk lives, across the northern hemisphere, and how the different races of this species vary according to their habitats, from the huge and very pale birds of the colder north and east of Asia to the smaller, darker birds of the Mediterranean islands in the south and west.
In North America, the goshawk has many interesting differences too, including a reputation for ferocity in defence of its nesting territory.
A large and spectacular bird of prey, the Goshawk lives in boreal forests throughout the Northern hemisphere. A powerful hunter of large birds and woodland mammals, it was persecuted for many years by game keepers to the point of extinction in the UK. However, escaped falconry birds led to the establishment of a new population in the 1960s, though the species remains rare and elusive - birders need a combination of hard work and a little luck to see this magnificent raptor. The Goshawk is an authoritative yet highly readable monograph of the species. It includes chapters on nomenclature, races…
I devoted most of my career to conservation charities and now write full-time. Besides my book Looking for the Goshawk, I've published regular articles about this species and the issues around it. In an age of increased awareness of the need for rewilding, the goshawk becomes especially interesting, although it receives little of the airtime given to other birds of prey, and mammals. If we are serious about fixing ecosystems and living with raw nature and having any credibility or moral compass when bemoaning nature loss in other parts of the world, we need to get real about the importance of accommodating keystone species like the goshawk.
There were quite a lot of books written during lockdown, as the enforced isolation created new contexts for connecting with nature close to home.
In summer 2020 James Aldred was in the position of having a large part of the New Forest mostly to himself, and a chance to immerse himself in the company of goshawks and other wild creatures. James was filming the hawks for a BBC documentary, with many hours spent in a hide, camera pointed at the nest, watching, waiting. This gives the book some of the self-contained, moment-in-time-and-place intensity of T. H. White’s Goshawk book.
WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING 2022
'A beautiful inspirational tale set in an extraordinary time.' Ray Mears
'Wonderful ... they don't come much more expert than James Aldred' Lauren Laverne
What happens to nature when we are no longer there?
In early 2020, wildlife cameraman James Aldred was commissioned to film the lives of a family of goshawks in the New Forest. Then lockdown. No more cars, no more aeroplanes, no one in the woods - except James - in a place empty of people but filled with birdsong and new life.
I’ve always had a soft spot for pirates. The romanticized version, of course. They epitomize everything I want in a story: adventure, romance, humor, drama, and danger. As for my life story, I’ve traveled around the world (22 countries in 3 months), am married (got it right the second time), find something to laugh at every day (myself, usually), have a five-year-old (plenty of drama), and the most danger I’ve ever been in was climbing into the bed of a pick-up truck to avoid a grizzly bear and her cub at 3:00 A.M. in Alaska.
In a world where having any powers could get you exploited or killed, Kestrel has managed to successfully hide her magical abilities and find a pirate captain willing to take her on as part of his crew. When the captain is taken, though, Kestrel vows to repay his mentorship by rescuing him, and to do that she needs McAvery as a bargaining chip. Even when McAvery isn’t stealing ships, he’s annoying. Kestrel doesn’t trust him, and needing his help was never part of her plan.
In a world where infants with magical powers are torn from their parents to be raised by the mysterious and powerful Danisoba, who have a monopoly on magic, Kestrel has managed to keep her abilities concealed-and herself free. First hiding in back alleys as a street urchin, she hid when they killed her parents, then served as a young tavern maid before escaping to sea, where magic is canceled by water. Now an adult, as the quartermaster of a pirate ship, Kestrel loves the freedom of living on the seas. But her way of life could end if anyone on…
