Overview

The predecessor to Helen Macdonald's H Is for Hawk, T. H. White's nature-writing classic, The Goshawk, asks the age-old question: What is it that binds human beings to other animals? White, author of The Once and Future King and Mistress Masham's Repose, was a young writer who found himself rifling through old handbooks of falconry. A particular sentence-the bird reverted to a feral state-seized his imagination, and, White later wrote, A longing came to my mind that I should be able to do this myself. The word 'feral' has a kind of magical potency which allied itself to two other words, 'ferocious' and 'free.' Immediately White wrote to Germany to acquire a young goshawk. Gos, as White named the bird, was ferocious and Gos was free, and White had no idea how to break him in beyond the ancient (and, as it happened, long superseded) practice of depriving him of sleep, which meant that he, White, also went without rest. Slowly man and bird entered a state of delirium and intoxication, of attraction and repulsion that looks very much like love. White kept a daybook describing his volatile relationship with Gos-at once a tale of obsession, a comedy of errors, and a hymn to the hawk. It was this that became The Goshawk, one of modern literature's most memorable and surprising encounters with the wilderness-as it exists both within us and without.

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9781504641043

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Reviews

[A] wonderful, classic account of training a bird of prey. -- Daily Mail (London) A classic. -- Buffalo News (New York) British narrator Simon Vance is the perfect voice for this very British book...Vance's performance is appropriately donnish, literate, and articulate. He conveys his appreciation for White's marvelous language with perfect pacing and unflagging attention. -- AudioFile It is comic; it is tragic; it is as primal and original as a great wind...it must be ranked as a masterpiece. -- Daily Telegraph (London) The arduous experience of training a falcon to accept a person as a perch forms the character both of the bird and its keeper. The experience has been vividly described by T. H. White in The Goshawk. -- Guardian (London) The book chronicles the ambivalent relationship between White, author of The Once and Future King, and the hawk he trained. Their battle of wills 'gives the book its peculiar charm.' -- New York Times This is a nature classic, conceived against the background of the Second World War...A warm and instructive story. -- Sunday Times (London) This is...the best book on falconry, its feel, its emotions, and its flavor, ever written. -- Stephen J. Bodio, renowned author and naturalist

This is...the best book on falconry, its feel, its emotions, and its flavor, ever written. -- Stephen J. Bodio, renowned author and naturalist British narrator Simon Vance is the perfect voice for this very British book...Vance's performance is appropriately donnish, literate, and articulate. He conveys his appreciation for White's marvelous language with perfect pacing and unflagging attention. -- AudioFile A classic. -- Buffalo News (New York) It is comic; it is tragic; it is as primal and original as a great wind...it must be ranked as a masterpiece. -- Daily Telegraph (London) The arduous experience of training a falcon to accept a person as a perch forms the character both of the bird and its keeper. The experience has been vividly described by T. H. White in The Goshawk. -- Guardian (London) This is a nature classic, conceived against the background of the Second World War...A warm and instructive story. -- Sunday Times (London) [A] wonderful, classic account of training a bird of prey. -- Daily Mail (London) The book chronicles the ambivalent relationship between White, author of The Once and Future King, and the hawk he trained. Their battle of wills 'gives the book its peculiar charm.' -- New York Times

Author Information

T. H. White (1906-1964) is the author of the classic Arthurian fantasy The Once and Future King, among other works. He was born in Mumbai, India, to English parents and educated at Queen's College, Cambridge. His writings have had a strong influence on both J. K. Rowling and Neil Gaiman. Simon Vance is an award-winning actor and an AudioFile Golden Voice with over fifty Earphones Awards and thirteen prestigious Audie Awards. He was named Booklist's very first Voice of Choice in 2008 and an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.

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