H Is for Hawk
by Helen Macdonald
After her father's sudden death, Macdonald trains a goshawk, the wildest of falconry birds, and nearly disappears into its world, while reading T.H. White's account of his own failed attempt. It is nature writing, grief memoir and literary biography at once, and it understands how grief makes us flee into wildness.
Read it if…
you want a literary grief book that is also about the natural world and obsession.
Skip it if…
you want straightforward narrative; it braids three.
Three things you will actually use
- Grief can drive retreat; notice when it goes too far.
- Nature holds what people cannot.
- Return to the human; the hawk is not enough.
Do this first
Spend time with something wild and nonhuman this week and notice what it does to you.
Our verdict
Extraordinary and strange.
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