"It is coming up to 12 years since the publication of H Is for Hawk, about the historian, writer and naturalist Helen Macdonald's time spent training a Eurasian goshawk after an intense period of grief. Showered with awards, the book was a runaway hit and sparked a literary trend for shared transformative encounters with animals including cats, dogs, magpies and hares."
"Macdonald, who is non-binary, is the audiobook's narrator. Their reading is characterised by introspection, curiosity and flashes of humour as they observe this spooky, pale-eyed psychopath who, as well as feeding and flying, likes to play ball with scrunched-up bits of paper. H Is for Hawk intersperses the author's adventures with their companion with biographical excerpts on writer TH White whose book, The Goshawk, chronicled his own attempts to train a bird in the 1930s using ancient and cruel methods."
An experienced falconer and naturalist trains a temperamental Eurasian goshawk named Mabel after the sudden death of their father. The account describes attempts to tame and teach Mabel to hunt, with detailed observation of feeding, flying and playful behaviours such as batting scrunched-up paper. Biographical material about T H White and his harsher 1930s methods runs alongside these episodes, providing historical contrast with gentler falconry practices. The material explores profound grief and gradual recovery through attentive engagement with a wild raptor and has helped inspire a trend in transformative animal memoirs and a film adaptation.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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