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Vesper Flights

Vesper Flights

by Helen Macdonald

Grove Press ·2020 ·304 pages
Best of 2020 Top 25 Critics' Picks
Top of the Pile
Top of the Pile
I Index
86/99
Top of the Pile

98/99

Critics' Rating Index

Near the Top

74/99

Readers' Rating Index

Top of the Pile

85/99

Scholars' Citation Index

99/99

Volume of Reviews

84/99

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About This Book

Animals don't exist in order to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they teach us is what we think we know about ourselves. Helen Macdonald's bestselling debut H is for Hawk brought the astonishing story of her relationship with goshawk Mabel to global critical acclaim and announced Macdonald as one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers. H is for Hawk won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction and the Costa Book Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction, launching poet and falconer Macdonald as our preeminent nature essayist, with a semi-regular column in the New York Times Magazine. 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 songbirds from the Empire State Building as they migrate through the Tribute of Light, 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. By one of this century's most important and insightful nature writers, Vesper Flights is a captivating and foundational book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make sense of the world around us.


Reviews

"Hers is a gritty, companionable intimacy with the wild ..."

Parul Sehgal· The New York Times Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"fragments of autobiography mix with impressionistic snapshots and deeper observations that peel away our anthropomorphic preconceptions and reveal the intelligence and mystery of birds and other creatures ..."

Joshua Hammer· The New York Times Read review ↗ Maybe Someday

"The poet in Macdonald moves these subjects toward mystery ..."

Marilyn Dahl· Shelf Awareness Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Perhaps the finest piece is also the most sobering, a reflection on the disappearance of spring, 'increasingly a short flash of sudden warmth before summer, hardly a season at all.' ..."

Kirkus Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"This will inspire readers to get outside."

Publishers Weekly Read review ↗ Near the Top

"Macdonald is endlessly thoughtful, but she's also a brilliant writer — Vesper Flights is full of sentences that reward re-reading because of how exquisitely crafted they are ..."

Michael Schaub· NPR Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"a book to relish at any time, both for its intelligence and grace, and its ability to edify and enchant in equal measure."

Malcolm Forbes· The Minneapolis Star Tribune Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Throughout these essays, Macdonald revisits the idea that as a writer it is her responsibility to take stock of what's happening to the natural world and to convey the value of the living things within it."

Jake Cline· The Washington Post Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Above all Macdonald wants to emphasise the natural world's autonomy from us and to question our assumptions about it."

Ian Critchley· The Times (UK) Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

"Her close encounter, while heartbroken, with a seemingly sympathetic swan, is testament to that."

Nancy Durrant· The Evening Standard Read review ↗ Top of the Pile

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