Scan barcode
A review by dinsdale
Vesper Flights by Helen Macdonald
4.0
After listening to Helen MacDonald’s excellent book H is for Hawk in 2016 I immediately added Vesper Flights to my TBR list and I finally got around to it. Unlike H is for Hawk, which is about her life with her goshawk Mabel, this book is a series of 41 nature essays which covers a wide variety of topics but primarily are about birds. I again listened in Audible. She has a great voice and her narration is excellent, and really adds to the book especially when she tugs at your emotions.
It seems like she’s been everywhere and has had encounters with a wide variety of beasts. She is British so we learn a lot of the issues faced on the island regarding the struggles of wildlife, birds in particular. But her travels took her all over the world and she seems to have a story for every location.
Some of my favorite essays were: her experience with an ostrich at a farm she worked at as a young person, the tale of Menesh the stork accused of being a spy and "arrested", the rise and fall of orioles in Great Britain, experiences with goats, the story of the arrow-stork, watching bird migration from the top of the Empire State Building, the effects of the 9-11 light beams on birds, and the tradition of swan upping. There are also chapters with interesting information about nests, swifts, wild pigs, mushrooms, cuckoos, berries, and a ton of other subjects. She also veers away from nature at times, writing about her migraines and her friend Nathalie Cabrol, a French NASA astrobiologist who studies lakes on Mars.
Some of the chapters inspire awe and some leave you with a lump in your throat and all you can say is “wow”. Great examples of this are her conclusion to the chapter Nests where she waxes poetically about an unhatched bird as she watches its shadow move around inside its egg and how it will someday rule the skies over our heads, and the whole final chapter What Animals Taught Me where she puts our relationship with nature in perspective. I think she's a great writer and she is the person you want to go on a hike in the woods with.
Like any collection, some topics held my interest more than others but overall this was excellent and listening to the brilliant author read her own words really added to the experience.
It seems like she’s been everywhere and has had encounters with a wide variety of beasts. She is British so we learn a lot of the issues faced on the island regarding the struggles of wildlife, birds in particular. But her travels took her all over the world and she seems to have a story for every location.
Some of my favorite essays were: her experience with an ostrich at a farm she worked at as a young person, the tale of Menesh the stork accused of being a spy and "arrested", the rise and fall of orioles in Great Britain, experiences with goats, the story of the arrow-stork, watching bird migration from the top of the Empire State Building, the effects of the 9-11 light beams on birds, and the tradition of swan upping. There are also chapters with interesting information about nests, swifts, wild pigs, mushrooms, cuckoos, berries, and a ton of other subjects. She also veers away from nature at times, writing about her migraines and her friend Nathalie Cabrol, a French NASA astrobiologist who studies lakes on Mars.
Some of the chapters inspire awe and some leave you with a lump in your throat and all you can say is “wow”. Great examples of this are her conclusion to the chapter Nests where she waxes poetically about an unhatched bird as she watches its shadow move around inside its egg and how it will someday rule the skies over our heads, and the whole final chapter What Animals Taught Me where she puts our relationship with nature in perspective. I think she's a great writer and she is the person you want to go on a hike in the woods with.
Like any collection, some topics held my interest more than others but overall this was excellent and listening to the brilliant author read her own words really added to the experience.