What I Read -- H is for Hawk

I had heard so many wonderful things about H is for Hawk when it came out.  It was one of those books that made its way onto my list, but that I never got to.   Then one day, my friend C mentioned an interest in falconry, so I suggested this book to him.

He picked up a copy of it, but didn't make it too far before he decided he wasn't a fan; he passed it on to me to see if I liked it better.

It turns out that I did.  Which is not to say that I was a huge fan right away.  The author has an unusual cadence to her writing; it took me a third of the book to adjust to it, but once I did, I was on board.

My favorite parts of the book were her descriptions of the English countryside; it took me right back to being in Britain in the early spring -- cold, damp, miserable, but also beautiful.  In a damp way.  I also very much enjoyed learning a little bit about falconry, which is something I have exactly zero experience with.

What I found unexpected was the near-total lack of reference to the death of the author's father.  At the time of the book's release, all I heard about it was how deep it was as a recovery book -- her father died, she got a goshawk, and (poof!) problems were solved.  That was simply not the case.  Sure, her father's death starts and ends the book (with the assistance of medication), but most of it doesn't address that at all.

Even aside from that, though, I very much enjoyed the falconry and the Englishness of the whole endeavor!