From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

H is for Hawk

Helen Macdonald

Start date: September 15, 2016

Finish date: October 1, 2016

Discussion: Reading List

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Reading List

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What Members Thought

Aug 23, 2015 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: science, books-on-books, read2015, creative-non-fiction

“I was in ruins. Some deep part of me was trying to rebuild itself, and its model was right there on my fist. The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life.
I was turning into a hawk.”

I didn't know what this book was when I started. Somehow I had in my head that it was a post-modern novel with esoteric writing; the way people were talking about it I thought I'd have to really immerse myself in it.

It turns out to be a non ...more

20 likes · Like · see review

Jul 08, 2020 Loretta rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, reading-for-craft

Yes. A friend gave me this some years ago. Many friends RAVED about it. I was like, "eh, memoir? animals? eh."

Well, my attitude towards memoirs has generally evolved, but even if it hadn't, this book might have been the turnaround. It lived up to all the hype, for me. I loved everything about it - the various threads Macdonald weaves together, her voice, the gorgeous writing, everything. The two elements that most drew me in - okay, three elements: grief/depression and the crushing weight of it ...more

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Jan 01, 2016 Jennifer rated it it was amazing

I listened to the audiobook of this on walks with my dog through a snowy, cold, rather lonely winter month. Macdonald taught me so much: about falconry (all those terms!), about T.H. White, but mostly about relationship. I can't pay the book its due by describing it, but it reminded me to pay attention to my canine companion trotting beside me, to the beasts skittering into the bushes as we approached, to the flurry of starlings and geese and even the occasional hawk overhead. It brought me back ...more

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