Here are 100 books that The Goshawk fans have personally recommended if you like
The Goshawk.
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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.
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.
T. H. White’s book The Goshawk had been a profound influence on Richard’s life as a boy. It inspired his early interest in falconry and his relationship with a kestrel. This in turn inspired his older brother Barry to write Kes.
After I had been helped to find it by the local Wheeler family who had known White all those years ago, Richard, Helen Macdonald and I made a memorable pilgrimage to White’s long-lost cottage one sunny spring morning. Richard describes the occasion in No Way But Gentlenesse, his vivid and moving memoir.
Born and raised in the South Yorkshire mining village of Hoyland Common, Richard Hines remembers heaps of coal dust, listening out for the colliery siren at the end of shifts and praying for his father's safe return. When he failed his eleven-plus it seemed all too likely that he would follow in his father's footsteps and end up working in the pits - unlike his older brother Barry, who had passed the exam to grammar school and seemed to be heading for great things.
Crushed by this, Richard spent his time in the fields and meadows beyond the slag heap.…
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
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 am an author, theologian, musician, historian, and college professor who has written more than twenty books about ancient and alternative history, religion in modern culture, and long-distance, meditative bicycling. My study of the past convinced me that modern life has, for far too many of us, grown one-dimensional. It lacks the magic and mystery that imbued the ancients with the deep and rich mythology which we inherited from them, but then allowed to grow dormant within our sheltered lives. Remembering their vision and experience is a key to restoring our own sense of self-worth and essence. Maybe we all need to meet a “Wizard in the Wood!”
I have been inspired by Deepak Chopra’s spiritual wisdom for more than thirty years. This is one of his rare novels, a wonderful story of time and magic. Merlin the Magician is the quintessential wizard, inspiring such modern-day spin-offs as Gandalf and Dumbledore. What would happen if he were to return today, bringing a message of earthy magic to a world of informative but increasingly sterile, materialistic science? And what if he has, indeed, done just that already?
Since the 1980s, an increasing number of black writers have begun publishing speculative-fantastic fictions such as fantasy, gothic, utopian and science fiction. Writing into two literary traditions that are conventionally considered separate -- white speculative genres and black literary-cultural traditions -- the texts integrate an African American sensibility of the past within the present, with speculative fiction's sensibility of the present within the future.
Thaler takes stock of this trend by proposing that the growing number of texts has brought forth a genre of its own. She analyzes recent fictions by Octavia E. Butler, Jewelle Gomez, and Nalo Hopkinson as…
I came to the Arthurian legends through the medium of medieval Welsh literature, a subject that had intrigued and challenged me since I was an undergraduate. I found the language impenetrable and yet beautiful, while the literature it encoded was fascinatingly unlike the literary traditions of England and France. I wanted to connect with a version of Arthur that preceded the romance traditions of France and England and bears witness to a much older culture and social organisation. Though I've learned to love other versions of Arthur, and indeed I teach the Arthurian legends as part of my academic work, the stark drama of the Welsh poems and tales continues to intrigue me.
This book-length study of the magical figure of Merlin is the most authoritative account of the literary lives of Merlin, Arthur’s wizard guide, from his earliest incarnation in Welsh poetry to his reinvention in modern novels and films.
Stephen Knight, a prolific medievalist whose work is always readable and entertaining, takes Merlin’s gifts of knowledge and foresight as his theme, arguing that throughout the many versions of Merlin in literary texts, operations of power are always working to restrict and contain Merlin’s command of knowledge.
Reading this book takes you on a journey that will enrich your understanding of the Arthurian legends.
Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian legend, has been a source of enduring fascination for centuries. In this authoritative, entertaining, and generously illustrated book, Stephen Knight traces the myth of Merlin back to its earliest roots in the early Welsh figure of Myrddin. He then follows Merlin as he is imagined and reimagined through centuries of literature and art, beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose immensely popular History of the Kings of Britain (1138) transmitted the story of Merlin to Europe at large. He covers French and German as well as Anglophone elements of the myth and brings the story up…
Marianne Bohr and her husband, about to turn sixty, are restless for adventure. They decide on an extended, desolate trek across the French island of Corsica — the GR20, Europe’s toughest long-distance footpath — to challenge what it means to grow old. Part travelogue, part buddy story, part memoir, The…
As a fantasy reader and writer, I love to explore magic systems and see how a story can seamlessly be brought to life. The natural, mysterious magic we often see in fantasy creates a sense of whimsy and wonder that takes readers to new worlds. I have two degrees in theoretical physics and a minor in philosophy, something that would seem to naturally lead to science fiction, but it’s also true that understanding magic is related to science. Indeed, the physicist Albert Einstein once said: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.” I hope you find some new books on this list that will sweep you to another world!
Mary Stewart’s Merlin Trilogy (and the companion novel,The Wicked Day) creates an immersive world and is so enjoyable to read. The characters are alive and the words flow across the page like gentle pixie dust lulling you into a world of enchantment. There is no magical system per se but the magic is present in glimpses like sunlight off the surface of a broken mirror, only allowing us to perceive hints of its reflections. Even for those well-versed in Arthurian legends, the unique perspective of Merlin takes us on a new adventure. I loved the elements of philosophy in the story as well, both moral philosophy and metaphysics that relates to our understanding of the world and the natural and magical forces that shape it.
The Arthurian legend is one of the most enduring and powerful of myths, and Mary Stewart's classic The Merlin Trilogy is one of its most beloved and acclaimed retellings. In prose that is as vividly, achingly real as it is poetic, New York Times bestselling author Mary Stewart brings to life the man behind the myth: Myrddin Emrys ... Merlinus Ambrosius ... Merlin. The Crystal Cave The Hollow Hills The Last Enchantment Born the bastard son of a Welsh princess, Myrddin Emrys -- or, as he would later be known, Merlin -- leads a perilous childhood in The Crystal Cave,…
I am a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Vienna (Austria), interested in ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of law. I am fascinated by the work of classical philosophers—foremost, Immanuel Kant and David Hume. A particularly interesting question for me concerns how political and legal systems shape people's identity and self-understanding. One focus of my research is on the distorted legal framework of National Socialist Germany. I wrote, together with Professor J. David Velleman (New York University), Konrad Morgen: The Conscience of a Nazi Judge. In German: "Weil ich nun mal ein Gerechtigkeitsfanatiker bin." Der Fall des SS-Richters Konrad Morgen.
The Reich Security Main Office, founded in September 1939, under the leadership of Reinhard Heydrich (until his death in 1942), and which included the Security Service and the Gestapo, was the organizational center of the Nazis’ murderous racial policy.
The historian Wildt's book shows how extermination plans were prepared and worked out in this office—in part by young, career-minded academics. Some of them were not just "desk perpetrators" but were directly involved in the mass murder as leaders of the notorious Einsatzgruppen operating in the occupied Soviet territories. One famous case is Otto Ohlendorf, head of Einsatzgruppe D, who openly confessed to killing 90,000 Jews in his trial.
Wildt discusses the post-war trials of these men by the American authorities, as well as the German publics’ growing ambivalence towards the trials.
In ""An Uncompromising Generation"", Michael Wildt follows the journey of a strikingly homogenous group of young academics - who came from the educated, bourgeois stratum of society - as they started to identify with the Nazi concept of Volksgemeinschaft, which labeled Jews as enemies of the people and justified their murder. Wildt's study traces the intellectual evolution of key members of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) from their days as students until the end of World War II. Established in 1939, this office fused together the Gestapo, the Criminal Police, and the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) of the SS. Far…
Since I first began to study the events of the Holocaust in 1991, I became deeply engaged and committed to trying to understand why individuals engaged in the abuse and murder of their neighbors, fellow countrymen, and those deemed racially or politically inferior. In exploring this question, I drew in part on my own military experience to think about how a warped organizational culture and corrupted leadership emerged in Nazi Germany in which state-sponsored propaganda and ideological socialization combined to pervert existing moral and ethical norms and led many within the SS, police, and the German military to engage in genocide.
Wendy Lower’s powerful examination of the role of German women as witnesses, accomplices, and perpetrators in the Holocaust exposed the participation of women in the genocide of the European Jews during World War II.
Focusing on individual histories, Lower reveals the backgrounds, actions, and motivations of a cohort of mostly young women who became complicit in mass murder.
Full of haunting descriptions, the image of the wife of a German SS officer leading a group of naked Jewish boys to a woods near her home and shooting them as they wept because she wanted to prove her toughness to the men is only one unforgettable example of women’s participation in the Holocaust.
'Hitler's Furies will be experienced and remembered as a turning point in both women's studies and Holocaust studies' Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands
History has it that the role of women in Nazi Germany was to be the perfect Hausfrau, produce the next Aryan generation and be a loyal cheerleader for the Fuhrer. Then they became the Trummerfrauen, or Rubble Women, as they cleared and tidied their ruined country to get it back on its feet. They were Germany's heroines. The few women tried and convicted after the war were simply the…
At the age of forty-nine, Laurie Woodford rents out her house, packs her belongings into two suitcases, and leaves her life in upstate New York to relocate to Seoul, South Korea. What begins as an opportunity to teach college English in Asia evolves into a nomadic adventure.
Since I first began to study the events of the Holocaust in 1991, I became deeply engaged and committed to trying to understand why individuals engaged in the abuse and murder of their neighbors, fellow countrymen, and those deemed racially or politically inferior. In exploring this question, I drew in part on my own military experience to think about how a warped organizational culture and corrupted leadership emerged in Nazi Germany in which state-sponsored propaganda and ideological socialization combined to pervert existing moral and ethical norms and led many within the SS, police, and the German military to engage in genocide.
Before being drafted into the German Army in 1941, Willy Peter Reese was a bank clerk who spent his time engaged in reading German literature and attempting to become a writer in his own right.
The memoir is a compilation of his journal entries as he reflected on his transition from civilian to soldier. Originally published in German, Reese’s journal demonstrates the way in which a relatively naïve and carefree intellectual became involved in the Nazi war of annihilation in the Soviet Union.
The transformation from a bookish, sensitive, and brooding teenager into a soldier who lost empathy for the people suffering under German occupation demonstrates how some German youth became actors and accomplices in the Nazi regime’s crimes.
"A Stranger to Myself: The Inhumanity of War: Russia, 1941-44" is the haunting memoir of a young German soldier on the Russian front during World War II. Willy Peter Reese was only twenty years old when he found himself marching through Russia with orders to take no prisoners. Three years later he was dead. Bearing witness to-and participating in-the atrocities of war, Reese recorded his reflections in his diary, leaving behind an intelligent, touching, and illuminating perspective on life on the eastern front. He documented the carnage perpetrated by both sides; the destruction that was exacerbated by the young soldiers'…
