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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

Mar 28, 2016 Ken rated it liked it

Shelves: finished-in-2016

The three is tagged on me more than Helen. Actually, this is a well-written book. Helen Macdonald's bio includes the word "poet" and it shows in the many, many descriptive accounts in this narrative. It's all about the buying and training of a goshawk. Behind that main plot, we have Helen trying to get over the death of her father. And behind that, a shadow account of author T.H. White's trials and tribulations training a hawk. I think the father riffs worked less and the White ones more.

My prob ...more

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May 15, 2015 Jessica rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, non-fiction, animals

Don't let the superficial description of this one as a grief memoir of a woman who returns to her childhood obsession with falconry put you off - MacDonald is an exceptionally gifted writer who can turn these subjects into a richly described and fascinating exploration of issues both familiar and strange. Even as it seems that she's emotionally bereft and flattened by her father's death, she finds just the words to demonstrate the not-quite-pet, not-quite-working-animal companionship she develop ...more

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Mar 27, 2015 Alan rated it liked it

Shelves: biography-and-memoir, dogs-and-other-animals

About half the book is a reflection on T H White's Goshawk. I have a copy of that, and decided H wasn't for me, I woukd go to original, H is well enough written and I am interested in the hawk, if not deeply in hawking itself, but I found this somewhat unsatisfying. ...more

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