A review by joshsharp
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

4.0

Quite well written and much more entertaining than I'd expected. I went into this with a little trepidation, thinking it'd be dry, and too full of grief for me given I'd already read a lot of that recently. Thankfully it is neither. This is a story mostly about the journey of training and flying a goshawk, and the details are told in a compelling way that served to make me feel almost like I too knew what it was like to have a hawk. The bond between Helen and Hawk was one I delighted in, especially during playful scenes. Hawks can play catch! I would never have guessed.

There are two other stories wound through the telling of this process. The first is the actually pretty minor one of Helen's grief at losing her dad, something that mostly exists to explain her circumstances and desire to retreat to the wild. This is not at all a book like The Iceberg where the narrative is about death, something I didn't realise prior. The second story is that of T. H. White, the author of The Goshawk, an older book on the process of training a hawk. He's a deeply flawed, sympathetic character, and again I thought the references back to his life and writing would be dry, but I enjoyed these too.

All in all, quite a good read for non-fiction.