A review by athenenoctua11
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

4.0

When I started reading this book which is about a woman training a hawk and also a parallel biography of another author who tried to do the same, I thought it was an incredibly niche book and wasn't sure if it would be for me. However, the slowness of it all (especially in the audiobook) ended up hypnotizing me and I was sold by the time the author discovered she could play with her hawk (a wonderful moment). It is definitely not for everyone: there are endless description of landscape, animal behaviour and, above all, a lot of feelings, a lot of musings, a lot of speculation about the other writer that trained a hawk. It is gloomy and wintery (the season for hunting with hawks) and yet there is something enchanting in this, even if you find that you would never in a million years hunt with a hawk.