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H is for Hawk
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ARCHIVE - MARCH 2018 - H IS FOR HAWK - DISCUSSION THREAD
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This is a fantastic book. I am thoroughly enjoying it.
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Question #2: After living several days with her hawk in her flat, Macdonald observes, “I was turning into a hawk” (p. 85).
By that point, Macdonald had basically withdrawn from nearly everyone and everything in order to focus on training. Like the hawk, Helen had temporarily become solitary and more independent, which (I think) she viewed as a key to recovering from her grief.
Although not in response to a question, the more I read, the less comfortable I am with the whole process of goshawk training. Macdonald describes taking a wild animal, controlling its food intake and putting a hood over the goshawk's head to instill calmness. Also, I didn't realize how much of the book would be about Helen's musings over T.H. White's writings.
By that point, Macdonald had basically withdrawn from nearly everyone and everything in order to focus on training. Like the hawk, Helen had temporarily become solitary and more independent, which (I think) she viewed as a key to recovering from her grief.
Although not in response to a question, the more I read, the less comfortable I am with the whole process of goshawk training. Macdonald describes taking a wild animal, controlling its food intake and putting a hood over the goshawk's head to instill calmness. Also, I didn't realize how much of the book would be about Helen's musings over T.H. White's writings.
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I do not think that I would want to train a goshawk but I would find it fascinating to watch falconry in action I think "on the sidelines".
The job of a parent is to teach and train your young to grow up to be independent. The purpose of training a hawk is to keep it dependent on the trainer and never become independent. It seems to me that this is more difficult when the species being tamed is not a social one like dogs.
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Hi, I'm Kressel, a long-time member of the group from Monsey, New York. So far, I like the book, but I don't love it. The contemplative tone makes for slow pacing. I was curious about one of the books she cited though: Ring of Bright Water, which is about otters on the west coast of Scotland. I wonder if that book is the reason that J.K. Rowling loves otters so much that she made it Hermione's patronus.
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Gavin Maxwell
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I like her writing style - a beautiful writer stylistically, I could do without her White attachment but I am enjoying the book very much because it also deals with something I knew little about - falconry. And loving nature and animals as I do - it has been enjoyable so far. I am not sure about the connection but it is possible.
After reading all the thoughtful comments here, it struck me how ironic it was that Macdonald admired and tried to emulate the independence of goshawks (in their natural habitat). Yet, Macdonald forced the bird to be dependent on her for everything.
MacDonald's writing is has a lovely flow to it, and so far that is the best part of the book for me.
MacDonald's writing is has a lovely flow to it, and so far that is the best part of the book for me.
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I have to agree - I find her writing style and choice of words - soothing - even though we are basically reading about goshawks. (lol)
LisaA at comment 61 - you have hit the nail on the head for what I was thinking. There is irony on so many levels here - the taming and captivity of the bird to free herself from grief; an enjoyment of taking herself into nature, contrasted with confining the bird to a manmade environment; studying and analysing the advice of a known failure in falconry to be a success herself...
I like the authenticity of the book so far with all its complexities and contradictions. Will have to see if it changes my mind.
I had a long. drive today and finished Helen’s excellent reading of her book. I was quite moved. I found myself remembering my father who died earlier this century. My grief followed a parallel path. In fact I find the pain so severe I put my grief in a small compartment way up the darkest most obscure attic in my mind. It keeps popping up and I find myself crying at the most maudlin scenes. I have not allowed myself to grieve properly. This book has helped.
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There is irony on so many levels here - the taming and captivity of the bird to free herself from grief; an enjoym..."
Anna G thank you for your post.
I can see why people love the writing style. I'll bet it sounds perfect when the author reads it. But whenever I encounter this kind of poetic prose on the page, I feel like the author is working too hard to impress me.Meanwhile, here's an article that involves a very different journey involving falconry:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/14/ma...
Kressel wrote: "I can see why people love the writing style. I'll bet it sounds perfect when the author reads it. But whenever I encounter this kind of poetic prose on the page, I feel like the author is working too hard to impress me.."I didn't get that sense from listening to Helen's reading. I think, tough, that when an author reads their own material they have a better sense of how it sounds in their head so that they can read it with the emphasis included that conveys that intent.
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I am sorry Kressel that you were not impressed but others were. Remember we are in the process of reading the book right now and it appears that you have finished the book. It might be best then for you to allow folks to make up their own minds and then circle back. It should be interesting then to read the Final Thoughts.
We are really not here to discuss the pitfalls of falconry. Right now I think I would love to see an avid falconer do his or her stuff with their hawk. It must be fascinating. And I am enjoying the book very much and it has a lot of depth beyond just raising a goshawk.
Here is just some of the praise:
Praise
“Breathtaking . . . Helen Macdonald renders an indelible impression of a raptor’s fierce essence—and her own—with words that mimic feathers, so impossibly pretty we don’t notice their astonishing engineering.” —Vicki Constantine Croke, New York Times Book Review (cover review)
“Helen Macdonald’s beautiful and nearly feral book, H Is for Hawk, reminds us that excellent nature writing can lay bare some of the intimacies of the wild world as well. Her book is so good that, at times, it hurt me to read it. It draws blood, in ways that seem curative.” —Dwight Garner, New York Times
“One of a kind . . . Macdonald is a poet, her language rich and taut. . . . As she descends into a wild, nearly mad connection with her hawk, her words keep powerful track. . . . [She] brings her observer’s eye and poet’s voice to the universal experience of sorrow and loss.” —Barbara Brotman, Chicago Tribune
“Captivating and beautifully written, it’s a meditation on the bond between beasts and humans and the pain and beauty of being alive.” —People (Book of the Week)
“One of the loveliest things you’ll read this year . . . You’ll never see a bird overhead the same way again. A-” —Jason Sheeler, Entertainment Weekly
“Had there been an award for the best new book that defies every genre, I imagine it would have won that too. . . . Coherent, complete, and riveting, perhaps the finest nonfiction I read in the past year.” —Kathryn Schulz, New Yorker
“An elegantly written amalgam of nature writing, personal memoir, literary portrait and an examination of bereavement. . . . It illuminates unexpected things in unexpected ways.” —Guy Gavriel Kay, Washington Post
“To categorize this work as merely memoir, nature writing or spiritual writing would understate [Macdonald’s] achievement . . . her prose glows and burns.” —Karin Altenberg, Wall Street Journal
“Dazzling.” —Kate Guadagnino, Vogue
“[A] singular book that combines memoir and landscape, history and falconry . . . it is not like anything I’ve ever read . . . what Macdonald tells us so eloquently in her fine memoir [is] that transformation of our docile or resigned lives can be had if we only look up into the world.” —Susan Straight, Los Angeles Times
“The art of Macdonald’s book is in the way that she weaves together various kinds of falling apart—the way she loops one unraveling thread of meaning into another. . . . What’s lovely about [it] is the clarity with which she sees both the inner and outer worlds that she lives in.” —Caleb Crain, New York Review of Books
“Extraordinary . . . indelible . . . [it contains] one of the most memorable passages I’ve read this year, or for that matter this decade . . . Mabel is described so vividly she becomes almost physically present on the page.” —Lev Grossman, TIME
“One of the most riveting encounters between a human being and an animal ever written.” —Simon Worrall, National Geographic
“Assured, honest and raw . . . a soaring wonder of a book.”—Daneet Steffens, Boston Globe
“One of the best books about nature that I’ve ever read. Macdonald’s wonderful gift for language and her keen observations bring pleasure to every page.” —Karen Sandstrom, Cleveland Plain Dealer
“The echoes of myth in Macdonald’s writing, however subtle and unobtrusive, lend her book an emotional weight usually reserved only for literature, and a grace only for poetry. But this is one of the book’s great achievements: to belong to several genres at once, and to succeed at all of them.” —Madeleine Larue, The Millions
“A unique and beautiful book with a searing emotional honesty, and descriptive language that is unparalleled in modern literature.” —Costa Book Award
“An inspired, beautiful and absorbing account of a woman battling grief—with a goshawk. . . . Writing with breathless urgency . . . Macdonald broadens her scope well beyond herself to focus on the antagonism between people and the environment. Whether you call this a personal story or nature writing, it’s poignant, thoughtful and moving—and likely to become a classic in either genre.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“In this profoundly inquiring and wholly enrapturing memoir, Macdonald exquisitely and unforgettably entwines misery and astonishment, elegy and natural history, human and hawk.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review)
“Unsparing, fierce . . . a superior accomplishment. There’s not a line here that rings false; every insight is hard won . . . Macdonald has found the ideal balance between art and truth.” —David Laskin, Seattle Times
“Gorgeous.” —Diane Rehm, The Diane Rehm Show
“A wonder both of nature and of meditative writing.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air with Terry Gross
“To read Helen Macdonald’s new memoir is to have every cell of your body awake and alive.” —Robin Young, Here and Now
“[With] sumptuously poetic prose . . . there is deft interplay between agony and ecstasy, elegy and rebirth, wildness and domesticity, alongside subtle reminders about the cruelty of nature and our necessary faith in humanity.” —Malcolm Forbes, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“[Macdonald’s] writing—about soil and weather, myth and history, pain and its slow easing—retains the qualities of [her hawk] Mabel’s wild heart, and the commanding scope and piercing accuracy of her hawk’s eye.” —Joanna Scutts, Newsday
“A triumph.” —Nick Willoughby, Salon
“A genre-busting dazzler of a book, worthy of the near-universal accolades that it’s received so far.” —Elisabeth Donnelly, Flavorwire
“Extraordinary . . . Macdonald elegantly weaves multitudinous and extremely complex issues into a single work of seamless prose.” —Lucy Scholes, The Daily Beast
“The hawk-book’s form is perfect. It prickles your skin the way nature can when you are surprised by an animal in your path. Some books are not books but visitations, and this one has crossed its share of thresholds before arriving here, to an impossible middle perch between wilderness and culture, past and present, life and death.” —Katy Waldman, Slate
“It sings. I couldn’t stop reading.” —Mark Haddon
“H is for Hawk is a work of great spirit and wonder, illuminated equally by terror and desire. Each beautiful sentence is capable of taking a reader’s breath. The book is built of feather and bone, intelligence and blood, and a vulnerability so profound as to conjure that vulnerability’s shadow, which is the great power of honesty. It is not just a definitive work on falconry; it is a definitive work on humanity, and all that can and cannot be possessed.” —Rick Bass
“A lovely touching book about a young woman grieving over the death of her father becoming rejuvenated by training one of the roughest, most difficult creatures in the heavens, the goshawk.” —Jim Harrison
“In addition to being an excellent memoir of loss and grief, H is for Hawk is a wonderful exploration of how birds of prey can function as metaphor to produce art and a roadmap for human lives. Read it and enrich your life.” —Dan O’Brien
“Rich with the poetry of ideation, the narrative flows through the author’s deeply textured story of personal loss like a mountain wind, swirling seamlessly through fields of literature, biology, natural history, and the art of hunting with hawks. Readers might do well to absorb this book a bite at a time—but be prepared for a full meal.” —Lynn Schooler
“A beautiful book on so many levels. Macdonald fearlessly probes each facet of grief and traverses its wilderness to reach redemption. But most beautiful of all is the complex, layered bond that builds between her and Mabel, her hawk. Who would have guessed that human and bird could share so much?” —Jan DeBlieu
“My favorite book, reincarnated: If you ever wondered what would happen if Sam from My Side of the Mountain grew up, loved, ached, and discovered himself in the heart of an ugly creature, you’ll find the answer in H is for Hawk. ‘The wild can be human work,’ Hawk tells us, which is one reason you’ll have to buy a copy—I’m never lending mine.” —Christopher McDougall
“In this elegant synthesis of memoir and literary sleuthing . . . Macdonald describes in beautiful, thoughtful prose how she comes to terms with death in new and startling ways.” —Publishers Weekly
“A dazzling piece of work: deeply affecting, utterly fascinating and blazing with love . . . a deeply human work shot through, like cloth of gold, with intelligence and compassion—an exemplar of the mysterious alchemy by which suffering can be transmuted into beauty. I will be surprised if a better book than H is for Hawk is published this year.” —Melissa Harrison, Financial Times
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Kressel, you might want to participate with our Discussion Questions which deal with the second week of reading. If however - you would like to discuss the book as a whole - I would suggest that you utilize our spoiler thread which is the glossary thread.
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Since this is Friday - we always post the assignment for next week.
Week Three - March 19th, 2018 - March 25th, 2018 - pg. 120 - 166
13. Alice, falling 120
14. The line 133
15. For whom the bell 144
16. Rain 153
17. Heat 158
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Next week we can discuss any of the book up through page 166 and the end of Chapter 17th without any spoiler html.
By the end of next week we will be more than half way through. If you are behind, that is fine - we are always here to talk with you about the book and get you caught up.
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Mongolian Hunters with their Birds
Chapter Thirteen - Alice, falling
All Helen could do was think about getting Mabel to fly. Helen discusses some of White’s writing and that he had finally learned that he couldn’t overfeed Gos. The hawk would fly to him when it was hungry. Helen goes to a get together and finds out that folks view her differently - more like the Hawk Lady.
Chapter Fourteen - The Line
Helen has some issues with Mabel and thinks it might be her food as Stuart suggested. However, these issues are impacting Helen in her everyday life including even driving her car.
Chapter Fifteen - For Whom the Bell
Goshawk
Helen does not understand why Mabel flies past her. She enlists Stuart's help and they discover the problem finally. She goes to a memorial for her father and realizes how much she misses him.
Chapter Sixteen - Rain
Helen reverts back to White and realizes that she just wants to be away from people. She is suffering from a fever and has to pack up.
Chapter Seventeen - Heat
Helen is apprehensive about Mabel and the fact that it is about time to fly her free. Subconsciously she worries that Mabel may fly off like Gos did to White.
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A Goshawk
VICKY KASALA PRODUCTIONS/GETTY IMAGES
This is the whole of the film 'The Goshawk'.
The Goshawk' - Entire Movie
Link: https://youtu.be/sb8aE0J_avw
Starring Duncan Carse as 'The Falconer' and a stunning goshawk
Based on the book 'The Goshawk' by T. H. White.
Created for the BBC in 1969
Produced and Directed by David Cobham
Copyright: David Cobham Productions.
Note: Some scenes with the Hawk hunting might not be for the most sensitive
Source: Youtube
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1. Macdonald cuts between her attempts to train Mabel with T. H. White’s attempts to train his goshawk. How much kinship does she see in their respective journeys? What are the similarities in their training routines? What are their differences?
2. Macdonald writes about herself, “We carry the lives we’ve imagined as we carry the lives we have, and sometimes a reckoning comes of all the lives we have lost” (p. 129). Later, she writes about White, “sometimes a reckoning comes of all the lives we have lost, and sometimes we take it upon ourselves to burn them to ashes” (p. 130). What is Macdonald’s reckoning? White’s? How do their respective hawks help or hinder their respective reckonings?
3. As Macdonald continues with Mabel’s training, she explains, “I felt incomplete unless the hawk was sitting on my hand: we were parts of each other. Grief and the hawk had conspired to this strangeness” (p. 135). How great a role does grief play in making Macdonald feel complete with Mabel?
4. At key points in the narrative, Macdonald is able to rely on various friends to help her through a specific emotional challenge or with Mabel’s training. How important is human friendship to Macdonald as she travels through her grief? Is it more of a challenge for her to recognize human contributions to her healing than Mabel’s? Why or why not?
5. Macdonald quotes White from his dream diary, “Need to excel in order to be loved.” Then she adds, “But there is an unspoken coda to that sentence. What happens if you excel at something and discover you are still unloved?” (p. 146) How much does this sentence pertain to White? Macdonald? Are White and Macdonald unloved, or are they incapable of acknowledging love?
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As Helen is training Mabel she is entering into the hawk's world, thinking like a hawk so she can anticipate Mabel's next move. But Helen is neglecting to come back into the world of people. Her friends want to help, but Helen is not letting them get close. It seems like Helen and her grieving mother could comfort each other if they spent more time together and shared their memories.
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While reading I could not fathom what was going on in her mind. She mentions things about her family but I got the feeling that possibly they were not that close.
What did you feel about these relationships as you were reading the pages?
I had the feeling she had more of a relationship with the hawk Mabel than she had ever had with anybody else aside from her father.
When Helen went to her mother's home, there were many things that reminded her of her father. If she's devoting all her time, energy, and love to Mabel, she doesn't have to think about the loss of her father.There's more about her family in the section of the book that we will be reading next week.
There are stages of grief that the bereaved go through. With a long illness it seems like part of the grieving phase occurs even when the deceased is alive. But it must hit someone very hard when the deceased is a younger person who suddenly dies. One is not prepared emotionally for it.There are interesting articles about the five or seven stages of grief online.
https://www.recover-from-grief.com/7-...
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Alright thank you for not adding a spoiler (smile). Good point about the fact that possibly her family members brought back memories of her father. Mabel I guess was a diversion of sorts.
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Thank you Connie - do you think that Helen was "stuck" in some of these stages? Somehow I sensed that.
Helen has exhibited signs of shock, denial, anger, and depression. In some ways, she can avoid thinking about her father by devoting all her energy to Mabel. But she's choosing an activity that Helen and her father had shared so she's also honoring his memory.In many ways Helen and her father were very much alike with their attention to detail, their patience, their love of nature, and their interest in birds of prey. Helen has not just lost her father...she's also lost her best friend.
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Yes it is very difficult when a parent has fulfilled multiple roles. Excellent explanation.
Do you see any signs in the book that Helen is beginning to deal with her depression "yet"?
In Chapter 16, p 151, Helen tells Stuart that she thinks she's a bit depressed. "I hadn't told him everything. I hadn't confessed the unpaid bills, the letters from the bank, the impossible nights, the mornings in tears. But I had told him something."So Helen is recognizing that she has a problem. That's probably the first step in getting help.
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So at least we see "recognition".
I think we see recognition but not signs that she is actually dealing with it yet unless telling Stuart was in so many words asking for help.
I appreciate that Helen talks so articulately about her thought life. She also seems to have developed a keen sense of the inner life of the hawk. As a result of her commentary on TH White I went out and bought The Once And Future King.
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I agree - she had become more like the hawk or she understands Mabel at a visceral level.
Wow - you did. I haven't read that in years. Good for you.
Normally you would have to cite the book and TH White but both were actually discussed in the book.
I am going to cite it here anyway because I think I am going to do a reread - can't remember when I read it - so long ago.
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T.H. White
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This is the assignment for this week starting on March 26th. We can discuss without spoiler html anything in the book through the end of Chapter 24.
Week Four - March 26th, 2018 - April 1, 2018 - pg. 159 - 231
Part II
18. Flying free 167
19. Extinction 178
20. Hiding 185
21. Fear 195
22. Apple day 205
23. Memorial 214
24. Drugs 221
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Chapter Overviews and Summaries:
Part II
18. Flying Free
Helen is so excited that she is taking Mabel out but her anxiety gets the better of her and she snaps at Stuart and Christina. She is afraid that Mabel will not come back to her. Visiting her mother reminds Helen of her father and it is painful.
19. Extinction
Helen continued to hunt with Mabel - but she imagines her father and breaks down and cries.
20. Hiding
Helen tries to write her father's memorial, she is amazed at Mabel every day and is impressed that Mabel is non bothered by a plane flying overhead. She thinks back to White's book.
21. Fear
Helen enjoys hunting with Mabel but understands the "mortality around her. She does not like to see any animals suffer.
22. Apple day
Helen goes to a bird event with Stuart. It was hard for her at first but she is finally able to write her father's memorial.
23. Memorial
Helen gives her speech about her father and strangely enough people coming up to her and talking about her father is comforting. Later, she realizes that she should be feeding Mabel more food.
24. Drugs
Helen realizes that humans and that she needs companionship. Finally she sees a therapist and help is on the way.
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1. At key points in the narrative, Macdonald is able to rely on various friends to help her through a specific emotional challenge or with Mabel’s training. How important is human friendship to Macdonald as she travels through her grief? Is it more of a challenge for her to recognize human contributions to her healing than Mabel’s? Why or why not?
2. Macdonald quotes White from his dream diary, “Need to excel in order to be loved.” Then she adds, “But there is an unspoken coda to that sentence. What happens if you excel at something and discover you are still unloved?” (p. 146) How much does this sentence pertain to White? Macdonald? Are White and Macdonald unloved, or are they incapable of acknowledging love?
3. Macdonald writes that falconry is not, as she quotes Professor Tom Cade, “high-intensity birdwatching” but rather “more like gambling.” She says, “You feel safe because you are entirely at the world’s mercy” (p. 177). What does Macdonald mean? Does Macdonald ever reach a place of true emotional safety in the book?
4. On one of Mabel’s hunting trips, she catches a pheasant. “I’m amazed,” Macdonald writes, and then is overcome with a strong maternal sense while she helps pluck feathers from Mabel’s catch. “she becomes a child. . . . A baby hawk that’s just worked out who she is” (p. 184). How much is Macdonald responsible for Mabel working out who she is? How responsible is Mabel for Macdonald working out who she is?
5. Macdonald writes, “Hunting with the hawk took me to the very edge of being a human” (p. 195). What does Macdonald mean? How far to the edge does Macdonald go?
6. Macdonald writes about reading White’s The Sword and The Stone, “When I was small I thought turning into a hawk would be a magical thing. . . . But now the lesson was killing me. It was not at all the same” (p. 212). What truths does Macdonald realize about turning into a hawk? What is the most painful and damaging part of turning into a hawk for Macdonald?
7. After her father’s memorial service, Macdonald thinks about her decision to “flee to the wild. It was what people did. The nature books I’d read told me so.” Macdonald realizes that this was “a beguiling but dangerous lie” that inevitably harmed Mabel. “I’d fled to become a hawk, but in my misery all I had done was turn the hawk into a mirror of me” (p. 218). How much responsibility does Macdonald bear for religiously following her nature books’ advice? Is Macdonald expressing enough empathy for her decisions?
8. Macdonald realizes after having trained Mabel that “I love Mabel, but what passes between us is not human” (p. 223). What has passed between Macdonald and Mabel? If it’s not human, what is it?
“All of the accipiters can be difficult to train, but the goshawk is the worst, because it’s so big and strong and fierce. There’s even a falconry term called ‘yarak,’ which refers to a state of bug-eyed, murderous intensity goshawks get into sometimes.” Photo of Mabel the goshawk in her first year, courtesy Helen Macdonald.
The Cornell article was excellent. Thank you for sharing it with us, Bentley.
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Hi everyone. I'm Jean from North Carolina, USA. I'm getting started a little late, but hopefully, I will catch up quickly. This book caught my eye long before I knew about Goodreads. Some books just call to me that way and will go into the pile to be read when the mood strikes. Since I saw there would be a discussion, I thought now is a great time to read this book. I find birds of prey fascinating and am looking forward to learning about Helen's experience. I'm curious to see how her interactions compare to my experience of working with horses.
1. "The wild can be human work." I believe Helen is simply referring to man's interference with nature, for better or for worse. What kind of narrator will Helen be? Helen seems to feel about birds the way that I feel about horses. She is completely smitten and captivated. Her eloquent writing style will probably give us a trans-formative look into the souls of both herself and her hawk.2. Patience. I expect Helen will need to have much patience with her hawk and with herself. The communication barrier alone will require lots of patience till the two come to an understanding.
3. "How does McDonald's views on White's book evolve over time?" Helen seemed to look at the book more literally when she was a child. After she grew up, she realized that White's book was about much more than an ill attempt to train a hawk.
I find I am paying more attention to raptors in my travels around Tennessee then I did before this book.
4. What does McDonald mean when she says that her book is not a bio of TH White, but he is integral to her story? I think that Helen identifies with White because she has a similar need to be understood and to be free. A friend told me once that we are either running towards something or running away. I had never thought about life changes in that light, but soon realized his words to be true. I don't know very much about White, but I think he was running away most of the time and Helen may be too in the beginning. I think running away and running towards can sometimes be the same thing.5. "Why does McDonald change her mind (about the hawk she is purchasing)?" Helen saw something reflected in the first hawk that she was looking for. A connection. A bond. How do we pick out a kitten or puppy from a litter? We look for something that makes us feel. We want to identify with our animal companion. I think Helen identified with the first bird. The second bird may have made her think there is no hope for me to get past my grief.
6. "Through closely observing her hawk's life, what lessons does Helen ultimately learn from the world?" This question will be easier to answer once I've read more of the book. I do believe that we have a lot to learn from animals if we would only listen closely.
The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds (other topics)The Bird Artist (other topics)
The Goshawk (other topics)
The Once and Future King (other topics)
The Sword in the Stone (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Olivia Gentile (other topics)Howard Norman (other topics)
T.H. White (other topics)
J.A. Baker (other topics)
Barry Hines (other topics)
More...
Thanks for the glossary link, Bentley. I recall the Nature episode being aired on PBS but for some reason I didn't record it. Perhaps I will buy the episode through an online streaming service, after competing the book.
I have fallen behind in my reading for week 2 but hope to post some additional thoughts soon.