Helen Macdonald
All Books By Helen Macdonald
Falcon
- By: Helen Macdonald
- Narrator: Helen Macdonald
- Length: 4 hours 7 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: June 22, 2018
- Language: English
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3.75(208 ratings)
Before best-selling author Helen Macdonald told the story of the goshawk in H Is for Hawk, she told the story of the falcon, in a cultural history of the masterful creature that can “cut the sky in two” with the “perfectly aerodynamic profile of a raindrop,” as she so incisively puts it. In talon-sharp prose she explores the spell the falcon has had over her and, by extension, all of us, whether we’ve seen them “through binoculars, framed on gallery walls, versified by poets, flown as hunting birds, through Manhattan windows, sewn on flags, stamped on badges, or winnowing through the clouds over abandoned arctic radar stations.” Macdonald dives through centuries and careens around the globe to tell the story of the falcon as it has flown in the wild skies of the natural world and those of our imagination. Mixing history, myth, and legend, she explores the long history of the sport of falconry in many human cultures-from Japan to Abu Dhabi to Oxford; she analyzes the falcon’s talismanic power as a symbol in art, politics, and business; and she addresses the ways we have both endangered and protected it. Along the way we discover how falcons were mobilized in secret military projects; their links with espionage, the Third Reich, the Holy Roman Empire, and space programs; and how they have figured in countless stories of heroism and, of course, the erotic. Best of all, Macdonald has given us something fresh: a new introduction that draws on all her experience to even further invigorate her cherished subject. The result is a deeply informed book written with the same astonishing lyrical grace that has captivated readers and had everyone talking about this writer-cum-falconer.
... Read moreH Is for Hawk
- By: Helen Macdonald
- Narrator: Helen Macdonald
- Length: 11 hours 6 minutes
- Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
- Publish date: January 01, 2015
- Language: English
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3.74(55516 ratings)
The instant New York Times bestseller and award-winning sensation, Helen Macdonald’s story of adopting and raising one of nature’s most vicious predators has soared into the hearts of millions of readers worldwide.
One of the New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the YearOne of Slate’s 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 25 YearsON MORE THAN 25 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR LISTS: including TIME (#1 Nonfiction Book), NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine (10 Favorite Books), Vogue (Top 10), Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle (Top 10), Miami Herald, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top 10), Library Journal (Top 10), Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Slate, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot, Amazon (Top 20)
When Helen Macdonald’s father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer captivated by hawks since childhood, she’d never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators: the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk’s fierce and feral anger mirrored her own. Resolving to purchase and raise the deadly creature as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel and turned to the guidance of The Once and Future King author T. H. White’s chronicle The Goshawk to begin her journey into Mabel’s world. Projecting herself “in the hawk’s wild mind to tame her” tested the limits of Macdonald’s humanity.
By turns heartbreaking and hilarious, this book is an unflinching account of bereavement, a unique look at the magnetism of an extraordinary beast, and the story of an eccentric falconer and legendary writer. Weaving together obsession, madness, memory, myth, and history, H Is for Hawk is a distinctive, surprising blend of nature writing and memoir from a very gifted writer.
... Read moreVesper Flights
- By: Helen Macdonald
- Length: 10 hours 22 minutes
- Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
- Publish date: August 25, 2020
- Language: English
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4.12(4879 ratings)
Animals don’t exist in order to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they
teach us is what we think we know about ourselves.
From the bestselling author of H is for Hawk comes Vesper Flights, a transcendent collection of essays about the
human relationship to the natural world.
Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best-loved writing along with new pieces covering a thrilling
range of subjects. There are essays here on headaches, on catching swans, on hunting mushrooms, on twentiethcentury spies, on numinous experiences and high-rise buildings; on nests and wild pigs and the tribulations of
farming ostriches.
Vesper Flights is a book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make the world
around us. Moving and frank, personal and political, it confirms Helen Macdonald as one of this century’s greatest
nature writers.