Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
Caution: you’ll probably want to get a hawk after reading this. If you want a temperamental baby that’s a savage killer and may abandon you at any moment.
I am surprised by how long it took me to finish this book but once I picked it up again I weirdly started to connect with and understand what it was about. A beautiful story of love and loss (in which I also learned a lot). The idea of “derealisation” was fascinating to read about and so well articulated. Will give me things to think about for a while
I loved everything about this book, from the info about the author of The Once and Future King , T.H. White and his training manual -- The Goshawk, t0 Ms. MacDonald's failures and triumphs on her road to healing after the death of her father.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Blood, Grief
Minor: Animal cruelty, Mental illness, Death of parent
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I needed a book that would distract me from the current events I read about every morning. This book, with its themes around history, nature, human vs goshawk nature, and grief kept me very interested and transported away from my own machinations.
Read Harder 2018: a book about nature
I'm going to finish Read Harder this year if it kills me. I've only got two books left and almost two full months in which to do it, but I keep picking up things that are fluffy escapism, and therefore not conductive to reading harder. (Last two categories: a children's classic published before 1980, and genre fiction in translation, which I already tried and failed to complete once.)
I liked H is for Hawk. Falconry-type things are not something I've ever given much consideration to, and I enjoyed learning about Mabel and the various things you have to know and do for your hawk in order to be able to fly it. Also that goshawks play and are finicky about their diets and really like trespassing when pheasants appear. I also understood so much Macdonald's need to escape from herself a little after her father died, and dealing with grief in ways that don't totally feel rational.
I get why she talked so much about the other guy, White, whose goshawk was lost because he wasn't a very good hawk-owner, but I think I would have liked it more if there was a bit more autobiographical material, or at least material from more than just the one hawking book.
The audio was read by the author and was very good.
I'm going to finish Read Harder this year if it kills me. I've only got two books left and almost two full months in which to do it, but I keep picking up things that are fluffy escapism, and therefore not conductive to reading harder. (Last two categories: a children's classic published before 1980, and genre fiction in translation, which I already tried and failed to complete once.)
I liked H is for Hawk. Falconry-type things are not something I've ever given much consideration to, and I enjoyed learning about Mabel and the various things you have to know and do for your hawk in order to be able to fly it. Also that goshawks play and are finicky about their diets and really like trespassing when pheasants appear. I also understood so much Macdonald's need to escape from herself a little after her father died, and dealing with grief in ways that don't totally feel rational.
I get why she talked so much about the other guy, White, whose goshawk was lost because he wasn't a very good hawk-owner, but I think I would have liked it more if there was a bit more autobiographical material, or at least material from more than just the one hawking book.
The audio was read by the author and was very good.
First welcome-to-London book I bought. (Waterstones extra chapter, after all.)
Excellent reminder that I still owe The Goshawk a read.
One down...
One down...
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
beautiful.
informative
inspiring
slow-paced