H Is for Hawk

Near fine hardcover in very good, unclipped dust jacket. 

When Helen Macdonald's father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer - Helen had been captivated by hawks since childhood - she'd never before been tempted to train the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk's fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creatures as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel and turned to the guidance of The Once and Future King author T.H. White's chronicle The Goshawk to begin her challenging endeavor. Projecting herself "in the hawk's wild mind to tame her" tested the limits of Macdonald's humanity and changed her life.

Heart-wrenching and humorous, this book is an unflinching account of bereavement and a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, with a parallel examination of a legendary writer's eccentric falconry. Obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history combine to achieve a distinctive blend of nature writing and memoir from an outstanding literary innovator. H Is for Hawk is a genre-defying debut from one of our most unique and transcendent voices.

One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century
One of Kirkus Reviews’s Best Books of the 21st Century
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