H Is for Hawk

One of the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year
One of Slate's 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 25 Years
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 nature's most vicious predators has soared into the hearts of millions of readers worldwide. Fierce and feral, her goshawk Mabel's temperament mirrors Helen's own state of grief after her father's death, and together raptor and human "discover the pain and beauty of being alive" (People). H Is for Hawk is a genre-defying debut from one of our most unique and transcendent voices.

BUY THE BOOK

320 pages

Average rating: 6.77

66 RATINGS

|

3 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

margardenlady
Dec 27, 2023
8/10 stars
This audiobook, read by the author, was a charming introduction to the world of falconry while at the same time critically examining love and loss. She parallels her path with an earlier author (T. White) and weaves a tapestry of rich language and deep feeling.
E Clou
May 10, 2023
4/10 stars
Helen Macdonald writes beautifully. I am touched by the sorrow of her losing her father. I lost my father too and made me (more) crazy for years. I can relate.

BUT this book feels like a talented writer sat down to complete a book by adding things for word count related to: 1) the incredibly difficult task of training a a huge goshawk, 2) her father's death, 3) her father's photography (small amount), 4) T.H. White's book The Goshawk, 5) the diaries of T.H. White, 6) T.H. White's other writings, 7) T.H. White's homosexuality even though this is barely related to his goshawk training and in no way has anything to do with her sexuality or her father's.

Also, these topics appear to be in no chronological order or any other logical order. It's so random. It doesn't come together for me. And despite all this craziness, the book is exceptionally dull. So boring. I just forced myself through it out of sheer stubbornness.

LiziB
Feb 23, 2023
8/10 stars
Great story full of interesting (and real) information about the details of falconry and also of grief. I did not appreciate the interposed chapters about the life of writer TH White (I have no interest in tales of King Arthur) and in fact paged through most of those.

See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.