Currently I'm reading: Jenseits vom Tatort by Horst Brandt
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28 January 2015
From Guardian Books:
Helen Macdonald wins Costa 2014 Book award with H is for Hawk.
I haven't read the book but have heard of it. One of the issues the book deals with is grief, bereavement and how to overcome this. I do deal a lot with bereaved families in my line of work. Reading about it is kind two sides of a coin for me. Sometimes I find it very interesting and it helps me to really understand the issues around grief better. On the other hand, it kind of feels 'oh, I hear enough of this at work, don't want to be bothered at home about this as well'.
In any event, I shall give this book a try.
Following info is From Guardian Books:
A book which explores grief, love and nature – as well as just how you train a goshawk you’ve bought for £800 – won its author Helen Macdonald a second leading literary prize.
H is for Hawk was named the £30,000 winner of the 2014 Costa book prize, adding to the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction that it won in November.
The writer Robert Harris, who chaired this year’s judges, said it was a book that haunted several members of the panel and was one they would never forget.
“Everybody agreed it was wonderful, muscular, precise, scalpel-like prose. It was a very clever and accomplished piece of writing that wove everything together.
“There are some books that win prizes because they demand it and then the public don’t quite get it. This is a book I think which everyone will like.”
Macdonald’s book has been hailed a triumph by almost every critic who has written about it.
It tells of how the Cambridge historian, illustrator and naturalist was so overcome by grief after the death of her father that she went almost mad and decided to train the most untameable of raptors, the goshawk.
Weaved into the book is a biography of TH White, who also tried to train a goshawk more than 60 years before her.
Harris said it was at the back of judges’ minds that it had already won a big literary prize but “it’s very hard to say: ‘OK, this has had its place in the sun’”.
The Costa is different to other prizes in that it pits individual category winners against each other. So the best novel goes up against the best biography, best poetry, best debut and best children’s book.
It took judges 90 minutes to decide the overall winner with support for all five of them. By the end it was a decisive if not unanimous vote, although Harris declined to go into details.
“Having been in literary prizes myself and been told I’ve come second – believe me, it’s no comfort.”
