Featured in Shelf Awareness for Readers Column, "The World is Meant to be Celebrated"

"The tradition of reflective, personal writing does not stop with Williams or Oliver. In her memoir, H Is for Hawk (Grove, $16), Helen Macdonald offers a similarly lyrical reflection on life (and death) and grief and healing. Following the sudden death of her father, Macdonald adopts a goshawk and spends months training it--and grieving."

I had great hope for this glowingly reviewed memoir wherein a woman adopts and trains a Goshawk for falconry.  (I had my own, albeit limited, experience helping injured hawks back to the wild — but that’s another post).  Mabel, the hawk and her training is said to be a remedy for the death of her father, but that connection is never fully developed or understood. Why a mean-spirited hawk – why not a kitten or a dog?   Ms. MacDonald started to loose me as she details her poor raptor’s “training” in a tiny apartment with some less than humane activities.  H is for Hawk has some beautiful writing, especially when Mable’s training moves out into the open British countryside.  But, I set the book aside and let it gather dust when Ms. MacDonald’s writing became tedious over her obsession with the deceased author (and even more heartless falconer) T.H. White.