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Vesper Flights

by Helen Macdonald

Narrator Helen Macdonald

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Length 10 hours 21 minutes

Language English

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Bookseller recommendation

“This audio book was my daily meditation. It is the perfect way to wrap up 2020. Soothing and inspirational, I am recommending to all my friends and family. ”
— Kristine • Buttonwood Books and Toys

Bookseller recommendation

“For the wildly curious. I regularly gasped at the random facts that Macdonald's poetic prose turns into dreamy musings. These essays are short, but Macdonald's investigations are deep. I feel both smarter and wiser after reading this.”
— Bryn • Bookstore1Sarasota

Bookseller recommendation

“These essays will stay with you long after you finish. They are beautiful and thought provoking. You will be awed by Macdonald's insights and by the natural world that inspired them. Macdonald's soothing, sophisticated voice, and creates something you can listen to over and over again.”
— Kristine • Buttonwood Books and Toys

Bookseller recommendation

“I wish I could give Vesper Flights twelve stars out of five. In this beautiful, loving, poignant portrait of a nature lover’s world — gosh, what an understatement — Helen MacDonald continues to prove herself a nature-writing powerhouse. Her literary skills make her a modern legend, and Vesper Flights is sure to touch as many hearts, if not more, than H Is for Hawk did.”
— Nikki F • Bookie's

Bookseller recommendation

“Helen Mcdonald, author of H is for Hawk, introduces her latest essay collection by describing the idea of Cabinets of Curiosities or Wunderkammer—curated and eclectic collections of objects, often from the natural world that would represent their creators interests and fascinations. This does aptly describe her essays collected here, reflections on a lifetime of obsession with nature, animals and the human relationship to the world around us. At once sad and lovely, Mcdonald's essays are reflective but also encourage humans to look outside ourselves in our engagement with nature.”
— Rachel • Brilliant Books Audio

Summary

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERAnimals don't exist to teach us things, but that is what they have always done, and most of what they teach us is what we think we know about ourselves.From the bestselling author of H is for Hawk comes Vesper Flights, a transcendent collection of essays about the human relationship to the natural world.Helen Macdonald brings together a collection of her best-loved writing along with new pieces covering a thrilling range of subjects. There are essays here on headaches, on catching swans, on hunting mushrooms, on twentieth-century spies, on numinous experiences and high-rise buildings; on nests and wild pigs and the tribulations of farming ostriches.Vesper Flights is a book about observation, fascination, time, memory, love and loss and how we make the world around us. Moving and frank, personal and political, it confirms Helen Macdonald as one of this century's greatest nature writers. A perfect read for anyone looking for renewed appreciation for the natural world."Thrilling dispatches from a vanishing world."—Observer

Science & Technology Nonfiction Environment & Nature