Helen Macdonald, author of the runaway bestseller H is for Hawk, will visit Oblong Books & Music in Rhinebeck on Sunday, April 12 at 4 p.m. and discuss her acclaimed memoir, winner of the 2014 Samuel Johnson Prize and a Guardian and Economist Best Book of the Year.
When Macdonald’s father died suddenly on a London street, she was devastated. An experienced falconer – Helen had been captivated by hawks since childhood – she’d never before been tempted to train one of the most vicious predators, the goshawk. But in her grief, she saw that the goshawk’s fierce and feral temperament mirrored her own. Resolving to raise the deadly creature as a means to cope with her loss, she adopted Mabel, and turned to the guidance of The Once and Future King author T. H. White’s chronicle The Goshawk to begin her challenging endeavor. Projecting herself “in the hawk’s wild mind to tame her” tested the limits of Macdonald’s humanity and changed her life.
Macdonald is a writer, poet, illustrator, historian and naturalist and an affiliated research scholar at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. She also worked as a Research Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge. She is the author of a cultural history of falcons, titled Falcon, and three collections of poetry. As a professional falconer, she assisted with the management of raptor research and conservation projects across Eurasia.
Oblong Books & Music is located at 6422 Montgomery Street in Rhinebeck. For more information, call (845) 876-0500 or log onto www.oblongbooks.com.
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