Books by Helen Macdonald

“Prophet is the first one on my list because I just think it’s so extraordinary…It opens with the most wonderful scene: an American diner has appeared in a field in the south of England overnight, for no apparent reason. Two people who are involved with the CIA are brought over from a nearby American airbase in order to investigate what this might be; they think it might be something to do with the airbase, but they’ve honestly got no idea. And when they come close to the diner, they realise that it’s not a real diner – it looks like one but there’s stuff in it that doesn’t work, everything looks a little bit wrong. After this instance, other things start appearing all over the place: objects, places, even animals. And it’s really intriguing. But what’s really wonderful about it are the two main characters. One of them is a very austere ex-soldier type, who uses words like ‘sub-optimal’. The other one has what he cheerfully describes as a ‘terrorist beard’, and gets into fights for fun, and is on an amazing rainbow of drugs.” Read more...

The Best Sci-Fi Romance Novels

Natasha Pulley, Novelist

“Macdonald’s descriptions and experiences raising goshawks are intimate, full of details that animate the focal predator as much as Sapolsky’s baboons. In other words, raptors have character in H is for Hawk. They are also, in fact, characters in the book: Macdonald gives her particular goshawk the name Mabel. I think Macdonald’s take on Mabel and her kin is surprising to most people because we tend to extol mammalian predators, which are most like us, over the scaly and feathery ones, which are more unlike than like. H is for Hawk feels like the definitive statement on hawks for the modern times, and I think its success has a lot to do with how well Macdonald tied her inquiry into the life of a hawk with her own personal experience and journey.” Read more...

The best books on Predators

Nick Pyenson, Science Writer