Vesper Flights

Reading 'Vesper Flights', I was reminded of why 'H is for Hawk' was such a hit. Simply, Macdonald's way with words is breathtaking. Enthralling.

I consumed this collection of essays. I experienced the full gamut of emotions - love, fear, dread, joy, wonder, amusement, anger, grief. Macdonald often waxes lyrical about the dizzying scale of the natural world, both at the micro and macro level, and in a way, her book parallels this. She zeroes in on specific, momentary experiences, and pans back out to the bigger picture. From astronomy to mushroom-picking. From swan-catching to climate breakdown. Not a big nature nut? No worries. There's a balance between humans and non-humans in the essays, and plenty of quirky and fascinating people among these. I won't go into any further detail than that - I wouldn't want to spoil a moment of it for any reader.

There are so many lines in this book that I had to earmark for returning to in the future. And so many facts and so much wisdom to glean. If only our politicians had a fraction of Macdonald's sense and empathy - we wouldn't be destroying our own future.


(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy, in exchange for an honest review)

This is a beautiful book, a joyous book but also a sad and thought provoking book. It is also possibly the best book that I will read this year, and I look forward to owning my own copy when it is published later this year.

This is a collection of stories from childhood through to adulthood and every place in between, stories from the UK and around the world. Each one is wonderful and unique in it’s own right and yet as a collection I don’t think I’ve ever come across one that is so well put together before. They are a nature insight, a personal story with feeling. Whether it is Golden Orioles or Fallow Deer, Swifts or Goat tipping (I’m not telling – you’ll have to read the book), these are all unique stories but instantly relatable. Written with love and emotion; sometimes they make you smile, sometimes they make you cry and sometimes they send you off into your own personal rabbit hole about a particular species.

I savoured every story, I took my time reading and in some cases rereading a story, I learnt new things about species that I thought were familiar and new things about species I’ve never come across before. I was reminded about times I’ve had similar experiences and felt moved to go out and explore and experience something for myself.

I can’t recommend this book enough, whether you are drawn to natural history books or not this is worthy of your time and money and if you know someone who is into their natural history then this is probably the perfect gift for them.

Now I’ve finished reading, I want to go back and read the whole book again, although I will probably wait until I get my hands on a publication copy.

Helen Macdonald writes with passion and soul. She can find words I’d never dream of to describe a deer magically appearing through the mist in a woodland, or to handle some violent and blood-thirsty act. She puts joy into her words, and brings out the compassion and horror connected with the darker side of life.

Through this series of articles and vignettes written for various publications over the years, and possibly some that are special for this, she provides a tender snapshot of the dichotomy of English life the late 20-teens. The divisions brought about by the Brexit referendum were only to get worse, but this sets some of the cultural issues relating to wildlife, travel and the state of the environment into context. If anything, it gave me a certain nostalgia for the time before us Brits descended into a world of complete madness.

Reading about wildlife is often uplifting. MacDonald gives us plenty of joyous occasions, not least when she releases a rescued baby swift into the wild. After a heart-stopping moment it flies off, to the cheers of the local cricket teams, who stopped play to watch. But she also gives us plenty to mull over, not least the plight of refugees, who could be aiding us in all the areas we urgently most need professional input. These people are stuck in detention centres that are worse than prisons, with no end to their sentence in sight. Reading this article has at least made me share refugee appeals on social media.

Some of the pieces are enjoyable, some surprising, most are educational, if you want to learn something to take away into your life. But above all, they are of our time, of the state of our world, and we would do well to take Ms MacDonald’s words and turn them into our own actions. Vesper Flights is a remarkable book. Buy it!

After H is for Hawk, it was an absolute delight to reconnect with Helen Macdonald's luminous prose. These essays are varied in their subjects although birds figure - of course - prominently, but what binds them together is less a subject matter than a whole way of seeing the world. And it is with such generous words that Helen describes the landscapes, the animals that roam and fly, but also her extraordinary human encounters. She shares her knowledge in a simple, straightforward way, so that you're almost caught by surprise by how much you've learnt while enjoying the pure poetry of these pieces. A comfort read in the sense that, if there were more Helen Macdonalds among us, the world would be a better place.

I've never read anything by Helen MacDonald before. Not even her hugely popular 'H is for Hawk'. A mistake I will soon rectify.
I approach every new (to me) author with a degree of trepidation. Life is too short to read bad books. I was reassured by Helen's first essay and by about the third or fourth I realized I was reading with drunken joy.
The author describes herself as a writer and historian but in all these autobiographical pieces she comes across as so much more. Her knowledge is vast as witnessed by the diversity of subjects touched upon. From Swift's forecasting the weather, to comments on Daphne du Maurier's famous story 'The Birds', to I Ching.
The love of what she writes about permeates every page and makes one realize how important it is we all fight to protect the good things left on this planet.

This acclaimed naturalist and gifted author draws you in with her insightful view of how we share this world with birds and wildlife in general. Written in beguiling, poetic prose this varied collection of essays might swing from joyous to thoughtful, sad and reflective topics, but they all share a general theme of awe and wonder, and succeed in opening our eyes to the vagaries and delights of nature.

Vespers itself is a sunset evening prayer service which is mainly practised by the Roman Catholic or Orthodox churches. Prayers are uttered to welcome in the evening. It’s a time for winding down for rest and expressing gratitude for the hours that have gone before. So it’s an apt title for a book which has gratitude implicitly at its heart, and a restful way of sharing pertinent thoughts.

Dusk is typically a time when we can hear birdsong. A Vesper sparrow might be among their number. Vesper flights suggest a waning of the avian population too, because several species are at risk of diminishing numbers in their usual habitats. Ecology issues, including safeguarding endangered species, is a background theme playing softly throughout this book.

There is no heavy-handedness here. In threading memoir with scientific knowledge, information and personal experience, the general impression is a gentle, inspirational call to pay greater attention. Because our lives are inextricably woven with wildlife, whether we are aware of it or not. But the benefits of seeing how closely we are connected are inestimable.

Without explicitly saying so, these disparate, beautifully written essays suggest we can become more caring custodians by deepening our appreciation of the created world around us and paying careful attention to it. This is a terrific follow up to H Is for Hawk, and an amazing book in its own right as well. Highly recommended. Grateful thanks to Random House UK, Vintage and NetGalley for the ARC.

The award winning Helen Macdonald's eye wanders far and wide in this thoughtful, sensitive, poetic and beautifully written collection of essays, some more substantial than others, on the complexities of the natural world, the environment, climate change, and people. She looks at flocks, made up of huge numbers of individual birds, a marvel of nature, linking it with attitudes to refugees, often seen as a mass to be judged and feared, a parallel where Helen suggests they should be viewed as individuals just like us, who want what we want. Animals and birds are often judged through human eyes as those that are acceptable and those that are not, much like the undeserving and deserving poor, a divisive perspective that promotes and justifies inequalities.

A recurring strand through this book is that humans view the natural world with its animals and birds as mirrors of ourselves, of our wants and needs, but of the difficulties of seeing beyond to this to intuit and see animals as sentient beings in their own right, with their own needs, wants and lives separate from humans. The non-religious Helen interest wanders into philosophy, theology and religion, looking for answers to the mystery, the patterns, the sacred and magic of nature, such as the Vesper Flights of swifts, although I was surprised that she didn't venture to look at and explore the Eastern philosophies and religions, and indigenous peoples' perspectives such as the those of Native American Indian and Aborigines. There is much that is autographical, such as her childhood exploration of the teeming with life meadows, observing the changes, and the shrinking of natural habitata. One incident stayed in my mind, the Great British Ostrich Bubble, and where Helen finds herself putting an ostrich out of its misery with a rock and a novelty penknife.

There is so much Macdonald touches on, such as the planet Mars, rewilding projects, the sorrow of birds in cages, cuckoos, life and nature in high rise Manhattan, the comic pushing of goats, politics, inequalities, even Brexit, marginal communities and a boy and parrot's immediate connection and dance with each other. I am not going to able to do justice to this fascinating and riveting book, but I appreciated the inclusion of the arts, culture and particularly literature, such as Barry Hines's Kes, and excerpts from William Blake's epic poem Milton. I think many readers will love and adore this, and I can see myself coming back and rereading parts again in the future. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.