I resisted this book for some time, even though it looked interesting, simply because it had become, according to the critics, a 'must-read. I'm now joining the chorus urging everyone who hasn't yet done so, to read it. It's part nature writing - sumptuous, evocative, richly descriptive, each word carefully chosen: part autobiography of a woman overturned by grief at the death of her father; part biography of TH White, author of 'Sword in the Stone' and 'The Goshawk', and so much more; part manual on learning to fly a goshawk - I now now for sure this is something way beyond my capabilities and my patience.

Her misery at her father's death has not enabled her to present him as a vivid character in his own right. But her portrait of the painful life of White is a fascinating one, and likely to make me re-discover books I haven't read since I was a teenager. Likewise, her picture of the countryside of Cambridgeshire makes it seem more rewarding than I had previously thought. I remained fascinated by her descriptions of training Mabel, her hawk, and her musings on her relationship with her, and the feelings of both of them towards the bird's prey.

Her own miseries were harder to understand, and finally somewhat wearied me. But this is a splendid book for the richness of its prose, and the chance it offers to see two wholly unknown worlds: that of the falconer, and that of TH White. ( )

A lovely book, dealing with love, grief, nature and literature all at the same time. Learned about th white and his Arthurian stories, about Hawks and about dealing with loss ( )

Dense, rich, delicious prose, and so many good and kind thoughts and trying to figure out ways of thinking, and, and, and. I really really enjoyed this book, even (especially) when I ached in recognition at her passage through grief. Probably my favorite parts, however, are the meditations on the nature of "wildness" and the human imagination.
Edited to add: looking through the other reviews, the most frequent complaint about this book is the inclusion of T.H. White's story, which on the one hand I want to understand--it is occasionally a little repetitious--but on the other hand fills me with fury and makes me want to yell at innocent Goodreads people about how they lack understanding. Part of this is gay territorialness--White's closeted and traumatized anguish makes me ache for him in recognition and solidarity. And part of it is also: the first six months after a major traumatic event, during which time a beloved uncle was also dying of cancer in my home, I became obsessed with Virginia Woolf. I read four of her novels, A Room of One's Own, and an eight-hundred page biography of her. Her work, of course, relates much less directly to my own experiences of sexual violence as a teenager (not a theme explicitly addressed in her work to any significant degree), but she haunted me nonetheless. People commenting that the book should have focused on MacDonald's grief instead of diverting into thinking about White seem, to me, to be missing the point entirely: the story of her moving through grief would not be complete without White, in some form or fashion. ( )

A Northern Goshawk flies though Macdonald's life, landing on her leathered wrist, peering at her with searching eyes. This memoir, prompted by her father's death, reaches into places most people never think about let alone go. ( )

I've never read anything quite like this. It's painful to read about her grief and depression but she's scary honest about all of it. Then there's the hawk. And TH White. It's an amazing work. ( )