H is for Hawk and Other Books by Helen Macdonald 

“Captivating and beautifully written, it’s a meditation on the bond between beasts and humans and the pain and beauty of being alive” (People). 

Winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, a finalist for the Andrew Carnegie Award in Nonfiction, shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, on more than 25 Best Books of the Year lists, this “instant classic” tells the story of Helen Macdonald’s life after they lost their father (New York Times). 

As they turn their grief into training a female goshawk named Mabel, the result is a “soaring wonder of a book” that is “one of the most riveting encounters between a human being and an animal ever written” (Boston Globe; National Geographic). Fortunately, for fans of H is for Hawk, Macdonald didn’t stop there… nor did they start there.

“Devoted readers of H is for Hawk will find Macdonald’s gift for stunning language, patient curiosity, and expansive wisdom on full display in [their] poems” (Publishers Weekly). 

More than a decade before H is for Hawk made Macdonald a rising star in the literary world, their debut poetry collection had already established them as a voice to be reckoned with. 

“Macdonald is a poet of vision and sound, oracular one moment and playful the next, whose first love and only loyalty is to the music of words, and in this unforgettable debut collection, they explore both their own inner and outer worlds, in poems ranging from war, art, mythology, and philosophy to CNN, Schubert, and “a hand of violets" (O, the Oprah Magazine).

“In the light of [their] new literary reputation, many will read, and should read, this book who did not read it before” (Times Literary Supplement). 

In 2006, nearly a decade before H is for Hawk, Macdonald wrote a “wonderful book [that] explores how the fastest animals in history have carried the dreams of mankind on their wing," a natural history of falcons that ranges from their own habits and habitats to their uses in shamanism to the Marvel superhero who recently headlined Captain America: Brave New World (Guardian). 

The result is a must-read book that “breathes life into the work; pulls the lives of falcons and people together into a rare three-dimensional portrait. The effect is beautiful and lasting” (North American Falconers Association).

“Macdonald fills [their] narratives with vivid descriptions of the wildlife that surrounds us” (TIME). And nowhere is that more apparent than in this “dazzling” collection of essays that “reminds us how marvelously unfamiliar much of the nonhuman world remains to us” (Wall Street Journal).

Published in 2020, Vesper Flights was Macdonald’s follow-up to H is for Hawk, combining some of their best-loved essays with new material on subjects ranging from immigration and nostalgia to the tribulations of farming ostriches, at all times shot through with Macdonald’s signature “gritty, companionable intimacy with the wild” (New York Times).

“If Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and Doctor Who had a baby," the results might be something like this “beautiful, tense, strange, and heartfelt" book that “reads like a Christopher Nolan movie” (New York Public Library; Shelf Awareness; Washington Post). 

Teaming up with Sin Blaché, Helen Macdonald produces their fiction debut, which rocketed onto numerous Best Books of the Year lists with its “perfect blend of twisty, high stakes scenes that a reader expects from a sci-fi thriller, along with a strong narrative voice” (Book Riot). 

A strange substance called Prophet seems to be turning everyday people’s most beloved memories against them in this “sinuous and transfixing” sci-fi tale where nostalgia has never been more deadly (Publishers Weekly).