H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald
H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald
18 Rating(s)
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
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H is for Hawk

Author: Helen Macdonald

Narrator: Helen Macdonald

Unabridged: 11 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/15/2025

Synopsis

The award-winning, New York Times bestselling international sensation hailed as an “instant classic” (Dwight Garner).

One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

One of Kirkus Reviews’s Best Books of the 21st Century

One of the New York Times Book Review’s 10 Best Books of the Year

One of Slate’s 50 Best Nonfiction Books of the Last 25 Years

ON MORE THAN 25 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR LISTS: including Time (#1 Nonfiction Book), NPR, Oprah Daily (10 Favorite Books), Vogue (Top 10), Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle (Top 10), The Miami Herald, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (Top 10), Library Journal (Top 10), Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Slate, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot

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 people worldwide. Fierce and feral, her goshawk Mabel’s temperament mirrors Helen’s own state of grief after her father’s death, and together raptor and human “discover the pain and beauty of being alive” (People). H Is for Hawk is a genre-defying debut from one of our most unique and transcendent voices.

About Helen Macdonald

Helen Macdonald is a writer, poet, illustrator, and naturalist, and an affiliated research scholar at the department of history and philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of the bestselling H Is for Hawk, as well as a cultural history of falcons, titled Falcon, and three collections of poetry, including Shaler’s Fish. Macdonald was a research fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge, has worked as a professional falconer, and has assisted with the management of raptor research and conservation projects across Eurasia. She now writes for The New York Times Magazine. Find her on X at @HelenJMacdonald.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Greg on October 17, 2014

H is for Hawk This is Mabel. She is a goshawk. I didn’t know what a goshawk was before I started to read this book. I wasn’t actually sure I knew what a hawk was either. “Seriously, Greg? You are forty years old and you don’t know what a hawk is?” Well, sort of. I knew that it is a bird and that it is......more

Goodreads review by Will on June 14, 2025

The archaeology of grief is not ordered. It is more like earth under a spade, turning up things you had forgotten. Surprising things come to light: not simply memories, but states of mind, emotions, older ways of seeing the world.Helen MacDonald had suffered a great loss. In Anna Karenina, Tolst......more

Goodreads review by Steve on October 06, 2015

A is for Ascendant Prose to sweep you away B is for Birds With a passion for prey C is for Cambridge She’s one of their scholars D is for Dinero Nice royalty dollars E is for Elegiac So sad when her dad died F is for Flying Bird and soul, side by side G is for Grateful Susan, you pointed the way H is for Hawk A gr......more

Goodreads review by Matthew on February 04, 2019

Before starting in on my review, I took a quick look at what my fellow Goodreaders thought. I don’t always do that, but I was really curious this time. I am thinking I am in the minority in my feelings about this one. Which is all good - I just didn’t care for it. Usually when reading non-fiction, ev......more

Goodreads review by Snotchocheez on November 11, 2015

I certainly would not want to dissuade anyone from reading H is for Hawk, Cambridge professor Helen Macdonald's moving memoir of coping with the loss of her photojournalist father. Her twin academic disciplines of English and ornithology (specifically, falconry) provide the source of her occasionall......more

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