Monday, March 28, 2016

H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

This memoir is on everyone's Best of 2015 list and has won numerous awards. I couldn't imagine why.  Macdonald is a writer and naturalist at Cambridge University. As a child, she became fascinated with falconry which set her apart from most of her peers.  Her father was her primary supporter for her unusual preference.  When he dies, the floor falls out of her life.  She fights her way back by training a goshawk named Mabel.  During her training she returns to a book about falconry by T.H. White (the Arthurian author) which she had read as a child.  She sees many parallels between  White's struggles with isolation and her own.  None of this is of any interest to me but I was drawn into this book by the language and the insightful connections between the two lives and the falcons.  Unusual and oddly excellent.

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