As nature books go, Helen Macdonald’s 2014 memoir, H Is for Hawk, was as big and successful as they come. Her story of throwing herself into the process of training the notoriously hard-to-tame goshawk in the wake of her father’s sudden death resonated with readers, bird enthusiasts or not. With rave reviews and a couple of major book awards under its belt, H Is for Hawk is a tough act to follow.

In 2020, Macdonald released her highly anticipated follow-up, Vesper Flights, an essay collection composed of new and previously published pieces. The introduction presents the book as a literary Wunderkammer. These collections of unusual objects, highly popular in centuries past, were meant to inspire curiosity, even awe, and certainly would have been conversation starters. Macdonald’s comparison is an apt one. The topics of the essays, like the pieces in a Wunderkammer, are wide-ranging and based in the natural world; each has the purpose of sparking a larger discussion based on an initial observation.

In “Swan Upping,” Macdonald writes about the yearly British tradition of catching the swans on the Thames for identification purposes. The author is inspired to reconcile her positive feelings about tradition with her concerns about the nationalism that led to Brexit. The increasingly violent collision between the human and animal worlds becomes apparent in “Deer in the Headlights,” in which images of cars striking deer are painted with stomach-churning detail. The clearing of a cherished meadow from the author’s childhood in “Tekels Park” symbolizes frighteningly rapid environmental change.

Macdonald’s vision for this collection is fittingly encapsulated in the eponymous essay, where she explains the still somewhat mysterious ascent of swifts. These small birds spend most of their lives airborne. Twice a day they soar up high, out of human sight—for several reasons, as it turns out. “What they are doing,” Macdonald explains, “is flying so high they can work out exactly where they are, to know what they should do next. They’re quietly, perfectly orienting themselves.” Just as the birds seek the clear atmosphere and the bigger picture by zooming out, Macdonald turns to the natural world for a grander view in order to see where humanity stands and where it can go.

Although Macdonald can’t have foreseen what the release year of Vesper Flights would bring, its timing has been fortuitous. As a pandemic continues to tear across the world, more and more people feel the pull of nature, an erstwhile friend, perhaps long ignored in favor of the demands of the world. This poignant essay collection is the perfect mediator to join our hands with nature once again.

Macdonald makes it clear in her work that nature is her ultimate teacher. Her humility in the face of the vastness of the world around us is one of the many things that makes her so likeable. When you sit down with a Helen Macdonald book, you can trust that there will be no ego and no lecture. Though her voice is clear and her presence is deeply felt, the author is happy to give up her starring role in her own book, letting the natural world shine. By doing so, readers can step more completely into Macdonald’s shoes. It’s clear to see, in her life as much as in this book, that nature leads.

Alas, not every essay in the collection is equal in power, and the titular essay seems misplaced at the midway point—an essay that completely summarizes the spirit of the collection demands its rightful place at the front. But the raw emotion that Macdonald brought to H Is for Hawk, giving the book its electricity, is all over Vesper Flights. Of course, no other book of hers, now or in the future, is likely to recapture the singular magic of her last release. (Indeed, given that her memoir is centered around life-shattering grief, it would be rather cruel to ask for another book of its kind.) But for fans of H Is for Hawk, this new essay collection is likely to please. Though many of the essays tackle big-world issues, the thoughtful concern with which Macdonald approaches them inspires hope, and the company of this author for a couple of hundred pages is a comfort. In a year like this, consider this collection balm for the soul.

While I haven't read H is for Hawk, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of personal essays. Through these I learned so much more about birds than I had known before. This filled me with even more reverence and wonder of them, of nature, and life, especially now that I find myself seeking the company of wildlife rather than human contact which poses great danger during these uncertain times. Moreover, each encounter shines a light on many charged topics such as immigration, Brexit, national identity, climate change, advance of technology, death, relationship between humans and animals and so much more. Although the encounters with wildlife are mainly in Britain, there's an essay which takes the author to Dublin where I live, and introduced me to a whole different side of life in the city. Next time I'll go for a walk there, I will bring my binoculars, just in case.

Helen Macdonald is such a wonderfully atmospheric and relatable author. Her writing is consuming, comforting, and hard to put down. Once again, she's offered a quasi-memoir that reflects on the relationship between human and animal, combined with insights on philosophy, theology, ecology and more.

This collection of essays excels at being informative while also ringing lyrical and philosophical to the reader, as only Helen Macdonald can pull off. A must for fans of H is for Hawk.

"We have always unconsciously and inevitably viewed the natural world as a mirror of ourselves, reflecting our own worldview and our own needs, thoughts, and hopes."

Vesper Flights is a stunning collection of essays by Helen Macdonald, primarily about the author's experiences of the natural world intermixed with some more personal ruminations. In many ways, her work tries to break down the typical approach to nature writing outlined in the quote above in favor of "the attempt to see through eyes that are not your own. To understand that your way of looking at the world is not the only one."

Beautifully written and extremely compassionate towards the non-human world--and the challenges it faces in the Anthropocene as a result of human-centered "progress"--Vesper Flights is well-worth picking up for those who love reading about essays, the natural world, climate change, etc.

My one beef with the NetGalley ARC is that there is literally no space between the essays--sometimes, one would end and one would begin IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH--so it was really disorienting to have to switch between essays without warning. But buying the real book would probably alleviate those issues.

I really liked H is for Hawk, but I loved Vesper Flights. Helen MacDonald has a story to tell and the tools to tell them. Awe and wonder embedded in her sentences.

A great collection of essays to read through slowly and savor. My favorite is the essay about the sea lions and the parrot.

Vesper Flights is a collection of essays that encompasses Helen Macdonald's previously published and unpublished writing. In her exquisitely crafted characteristic prose, Macdonald writes about everything from bird behaviour to human behaviour and sundry in a collection that's as vibrant as birds in the springtime sky. Topics like, wisdom required to collect mushrooms, strolling in winter woods, the dilemma of having captive birds as pets, the ethics of rescuing injured swifts, urban birds and the collective etiquette of bird watchers in the 'hiding' populate the book, providing brilliant insights into the world of birds and emphasizing the balance mankind needs to strike with environment. Macdonald draws personal experiences and wisdom in this memoiristic collection of nature writing that is at once moving and needs to be placed in the lists of necessary reading.

A really lovely exploration of our relation to the natural world, I want to buy a copy to finish reading it.

Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald is a collection of about 40 essays - some previously published and some new - on a wide variety of topics. As with H is for Hawk, the writing is beautiful. My review of this book has unfortunately been impacted by the fact that the version I received is one contiguous block of text. Although the finished book is comprised of a set of essays, the version I received has no divisions or other marking between the essays. I am disappointed.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2020/04/vesper-flights.html

Reviewed for NetGalley.

Alone among the literate world, I was made uncomfortable by the relationship between naturalist Macdonald and Mabel the formerly wild hawk told in "H is for Hawk". These essays on many topics are written in Author Macdonald's justly celebrated elegant prose, and include so many aperçus that my commonplace book blew up. If you don't share my unease with people venerating wildness while taming it out of a fellow being, you'll enjoy this collection without my unshakeable unease.

I confess I was one of the few people who was not a huge fan of Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk. So it was with some trepidation I picked up her collection of essays, Vesper Flights. But it seems I’m more enamored of Macdonald’s short-form nonfiction than long-form, as I thoroughly enjoyed nearly all of these works thanks to their thoughtful and thought-provoking nature and Macdonald’s wonderfully poetic, often elegiac prose.

The focus in these 40-some essays is nature and the environment, with a majority dealing with our relationship to those (as opposed to simply being observation/informational). As well, a good number and possibly a majority (I didn’t count) focus particularly on birds. But if nature is the focus, it’s also a jumping off point, as Macdonald ranges wide, bringing in other subjects, such as war, Brexit, bigotry, religion, and nationalism. Honestly, though, I felt these moments, particularly the more topical political ones, were the weakest aspects of the essays, sometimes feeling a bit forced, other times feeling too tossed off, with not enough development to merit their inclusion.

Those few moments, however, were far outweighed by the collections many strengths. I’m typically satisfied if more than half of any collection (essays, stories, poetry) are “good,” happy if that goes up to two-thirds and thrilled if it’s any higher. In this case only one essay felt noticeably weaker, not because it was “bad” but because it was relatively pedestrian or familiar. Beyond that singular example, the essays, which vary in length from 2-3 pages to a dozen or more, were uniformly strong: vivid, engaging, and thought-provoking, and all told with a beautifully crafted style, whether it’s a mediation on DVCs (deer-vehicle collisions), an excursion to forage for chanterelle mushrooms or to tag/identify swans, or a look at a former spymaster raising a cuckoo.

The nature writing itself (i.e. the color of a wingtip, the sense of setting, the particular sounds of a birdcall, the feel of a summer storm) is superb, but my favorite times were when Macdonald stepped out of the physical realm to examine not simply the way we see animals, but the way we see them, the way we use them as metaphor, as a mirror, as a guide. And all the ways we, and, as Macdonald often admits, she herself gets all that wrong. Or at least, not fully right. It’s a book that takes those not-all-that-unique concepts and challenges them, challenges us and herself, to step beyond those trite ideas and look a little harder. As she says in one essay, watching a rook overhead, “These days I take emotional solace from knowing that animals are not like me, that their lives are not about us at all. The house it’s flying over has meaning for both of us. To me it is a home, the rook? A waypoint on a journey. Emotional solace is needed, because many of these essays have at their core a haunting sorrow, a grieving over a world growing ever more empty, ever more monotone in color: fields are developed into tracts, trees are cut down by the thousands after millions are already killed by diseases born out of globalist trade, climate change is driving creatures out of their usual homes; and birds, mammals, insects, reptiles, plants —all life except humans, and those who live with us like rats and cockroaches — are disappearing. Macdonald wonders what today’s children will have no memories of no experience of. And perhaps this collection is a bit of a bulwark against that sad day. Highly recommended.

A few years back, I read Helen Macdonald’s book H is for Hawk, and I really loved it. I have always loved animals, and even as a child I enjoyed reading both stories about or featuring animals, as well as non-fiction books describing the life of different animals. And H is for Hawk ticked both of those boxes for me.

So, when I saw another title by Macdonald, I definitely was interested in reading it. And, I was not disappointed. Vesper Flights is a collection of short essays focused on how humans and nature interact, with a particular emphasis on birds. It is beautifully written, with certain phrases feeling poetical, while at the same time leaving the impression that I have learned something rooted in facts from each essay.

Throughout the book, I found myself reminded of John McPhee, and as he is one of my favorite authors, I consider that high praise. If you are at all interested in birds and/or the interface between humans and nature, I highly recommend this book.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an advanced reading copy via NetGalley.

This is a very interesting essay collection about nature and the relationship of humans to nature. The essays are good for reading a few at a time, and give the reader a lot to reflect upon. I really enjoyed learning so much from the essays as well.

I was absolutely excited to pick this up after reading H is for Hawk (although slightly sad this is not V is for Vesper)

I enjoyed H is for Hawk and liked this slightly more! Very informative, very relaxing read that I would encourage by friends to pick up when they are in the mood for an interesting and peaceful book. I will be purchasing the physical copy so it can sit nicely next to H is for Hawk on my shelves.

In her introduction to this collection of essays, Helen MacDonald describes this book as Wunderkammer: a cabinet of curiosities - literally translated as cabinet of wonders. And that is exactly what it is. It’s a cornucopia of delights. There are essays here of varying length and tone, linked by the natural world and Helen’s relationship to it. She introduces us to moments from across her life: from childhood to maturity - and she has had some remarkable experiences.

There are everyday moments which are made magical through Helen’s eyes. There are others which feel fleetingly surreal such as her observation of the night flights of tiny songbirds high above the Empire State Building in New York. There are haunting moments hunting elusive birds deep within marshy reed beds. And there is humour - particularly concerning goats. There is poignancy; there is reflection. And there is always Helen’s lustrous prose and penetrating insight.

“Not knowing very much about deer has made my encounters with them less like encounters with real animals and more like tableaux of happenstance, symbolism and emotion. My ignorance, I think, has been purposive. It has been like me saying: I wish there was more magic in the world. And then the deer have appeared to say, Here it is. This is what deer are for me. They stand for the natural world’s capacity to surprise and derail my expectations.”

But there is more to this book than a collection of wildlife essays. Just like it predecessor, H is for Hawk (one of my favourite books) this one too, defies categorisation. The narrative in H is for Hawk may sweep across memoir, nature writing, grief memoir, history but it forms a coherent whole with a connected beginning middle and end. As I read, it seemed to me that Vesper Flights does not have the same coherence. There is also an agenda within this collection, and it goes beyond the natural world. Initially I bridled a little when I realised this; I feared I was about to be lectured at. But I shouldn’t have been concerned and of course, there is no need to read every piece. In this Wunderkammer, if one or two items don’t appeal, one can simply move on to the next. But I did read every piece. And I shall read every one of them again. I shall also remember what Helen says in her introduction because it is there on second reading that I found the answer to what gives this cornucopia its coherence:

“Working as a historian of science revealed to me how we have always unconsciously and inevitably viewed the natural world as a mirror of ourselves, reflecting our own world-view and our own needs, thoughts and hopes. Many of the essays here are exercises in interrogating such human ascriptions and assumptions. Most of all I hope my work is about a thing that seems to me of the deepest possible importance in our present-day historical moment: finding ways to recognise and love difference.”

My thanks to NetGalley for granting me access to this book and apologies for the delay in producing a review. I shall be acquiring my own printed copy very soon!

Posted to Goodreads, Amazon & Waterstones

Any doubt that Macdonald could write a worthy follow-up to H Is for Hawk evaporates instantly. Even though these essays were written for various periodicals (New York Times Magazine and New Statesman) and anthologies (including Ground Work) and range in topic from mushroom-hunting to deer–vehicle collisions and in scope from deeply researched travel pieces to one-page reminiscences, they magically form a coherent whole. Equally reliant on argument and epiphany, the book has more to say about human–animal interactions in one of its essays than some whole volumes manage (so sorry, Esther Woolfson).

As you might expect, birds are a recurring theme: nests and egg collecting, watching a night migration from the Empire State Building, cranes, swans, urban peregrine falcons, swifts’ habits (the source of the title and cover image), orioles, cuckoos, storks, hawfinches, Bird Fair versus bird-keeping as a hobby, and nightjars. But even where birds are the ostensible subject, as in two pieces about swans, there is so much else going on. Birds are a means of talking about home and belonging, and so swans become a way of talking about false notions of what is native and what is alien, a way of interrogating what Brexit meant.

Although, on the whole, this book is less personal than H Is for Hawk, Macdonald still does plenty of reckoning with the facts and possibilities of her life. In this vein, I especially loved the final three essays: “Dispatches from the Valleys,” about her time working at a falcon-breeding farm in Wales and learning how to recognize that a situation was no good for her; “The Numinous Ordinary,” about the traces of holiness in a secular life; and “What Animals Taught Me,” which is about everything, but perhaps mostly about recognizing our fellow creaturehood (“a bird in the sky on its way somewhere else sent a glance across the divide and stitched me back into a world where both of us have equal billing”).

Her last lines are unfailingly breathtaking. I’d rather read her writing on any subject than almost any other author’s. In my top few for 2020’s nonfiction releases.

Just as a note to self, these are the other topics she covers:
• wild boar
• flying ants
• migraines
• walking in the woods in winter
• a solar eclipse
• extremophile organisms in Chile (the Atacama Desert)
• hares
• foxes
• glow-worms
• Wicken Fen
• a summer storm
• ash trees
• feeding wild animals
• berries
• wildlife hides
• animal rescue
• goat-tipping
• the paintings of Stanley Spencer

Favorite passages:

“I think differently of home now: it’s a place you carry within you, not simply a fixed location. Perhaps birds taught me that, or took me some of the way there.” [similar to things Tim Dee has said, including in Greenery]

(on viewing an eclipse) “Goodbye, intellectual apprehension. Hello, something else entirely. … The exhilaration is barely contained terror. I’m tiny and huge all at once, as lonely and singular as I’ve ever felt, and as merged and part of a crowd as it is possible to be. It is a shared, intensely private experience. But there are no human words fit to express all this. Opposites? Yes! Let’s conjure big binary oppositions and grand narratives, break everything and mend it at the same moment. Sun and moon. Darkness and light. Sea and land, breath and no breath, life, death. A total eclipse makes history laughable, makes you feel both precious and disposable, makes the inclinations of the world incomprehensible”

“All of us have to live our lives most of the time inside the protective structures that we have built; none of us can bear too much reality. We need our books, our craft projects, our dogs and knitting, our movies, gardens and gigs. It’s who we are. We’re held together by our lives, our interests, and all our chosen comforts. But we can’t have only those things, because then we can’t work out where we should be headed.”

This is an engaging collection of essays about nature and humanity's relationship to nature. I found MacDonald's writing style very evocative, and I think she has great insight into how nature can enlighten us about our humanity and our place in the world.

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

What books are you reading for #nonfictionnovember ? If you love books about nature then I highly recommend adding Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald!

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Thank you to @groveatlantic @netgalley and @librofm for the fre ALC and ARC for review. I bounced between my kindle version and the audiobook for this beautiful collection of essays that really show us what we can learn about ourselves by observing the nature and animals around us.

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Synopsis from the publisher: In Vesper Flights Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best loved essays, along with new pieces on topics ranging from nostalgia for a vanishing countryside to the tribulations of farming ostriches to her own private vespers while trying to fall asleep.Meditating on notions of captivity and freedom, immigration and flight, Helen invites us into her most intimate experiences: observing the massive migration of songbirds from the top of the Empire State Building, watching tens of thousands of cranes in Hungary, seeking the last golden orioles in Suffolk’s poplar forests. She writes with heart-tugging clarity about wild boar, swifts, mushroom hunting, migraines, the strangeness of birds’ nests, and the unexpected guidance and comfort we find when watching wildlife.

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I found this book to provide a wonderful sense of calm with it’s beautiful writing and focus on the world around us. The narration by the author was fantastic and came in a little over 10 hours long. Not only were these stories relatable, but they were a great reminder to appreciate and learn from the environment around us. Appreciate the beauty of wildlife and think about our role in maintaining a safe and thriving planet.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I enjoyed H is for Hawk and liked this equally. Very informative and peaceful book. Would recommend.