A heroic and important work

An excellent book... Vince writes with great freshness and vigour, and her stories are hard to stop reading

It holds a mirror up to humanity and says: look what you have done to the world, the only world you will ever have... in every sense a good book, as well as a compelling read

A masterpiece... a wondrous, remarkable, but heart-rending story

A story of optimism about how 10 billion people can in future live together and prosper... Fresh and unencumbered, Vince glides from ecology to economics, politics to philosophy, seeing it all through the people she meets

Ambitious and provocative... brilliant

Vince's broader discussions of the biological and Earth science are as cogent as her close reportage

A beautifully human and optimistic book filled with stories of ordinary people who simply refuse to give up

A beautifully written book that raises the most profound question of our time: "How should we live?" In the past, this has been primarily a personal question. But, as Gaia Vince amply demonstrates, what was once a personal question has become the central question for us as a species -- and the fate of nearly every species on our planet (including our own) rests on our answer.

A richly textured account of the post-wilderness years (and this year's winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books)

Ms Vince's focus on individuals and places helps ground the science in reality... [her] case studies are fascinating

I love this book. Gaia Vince effortlessly weaves individual stories into an epic, global narrative, to present us with a positive vision of a humane, brave new world

A fine and timely book. Gaia Vince shows us how to stay steady and cheerful despite the ever intensifying drama of the Anthropocene

Fascinating, troubling and remarkably cool-headed

Gaia's remarkable journey is a unique inventory of life on earth, both wild and human, at this important moment in our history.

A brilliant book, full of examples of fighting back against climate change in unexpected and courageous ways

Gaia Vince discovers how ingenious individuals around the world cope with the consequences of environmental changes and sees how our relationship with the natural world have evolved over the centuries

Our species has exploded into a new kind of force – one species able to alter the physical, chemical and biological properties of the planet on a geological scale. Gaia Vince’s important book provides the evolutionary, temporal and biophysical context to show with clarity the stunning speed and magnitude of the human footprint on the planet. She manages to inspire with hope while conveying a cry of urgency.

Have you seen the state of our planet? Gaia Vince has. She travelled the globe for two years to investigate what we are doing to it, and this heroic feat of reporting is the result. She, and her readers, are left wiser, sometimes sadder, but still holding on to a core optimism about possible futures for our world.

A literal walk through the far reaches of our planet, a biosphere now governed as much by human activity as by the forces of nature. We should take heed of these hard won stories by Gaia Vince, and wise up

Makes it easier to look at the Earth’s future without pessimism, and is a delight to read for the science alone

This is a transformative book and will inspire all of its readers to think more carefully about the way we interact with the environment

A world tour of how our transformation of the planet is playing out on the ground

holds a mirror up to humanity and says: look what you have done to the world, the only world you will ever have… a compelling read

A travelogue that tries to explain the enormous changes occurring on Earth at the level of the individual citizen.

The book’s personal nature makes it a joy to read… Despite being densely filled with meticulously researched facts, it always flows like a good travel journal.

The book’s personal nature makes it a joy to read. Added to this is the book’s excellent structure, examining each habitat in turn…and looking at the solutions science might provide… Despite being densely filled with meticulously researched facts, it always flows like a good travel journal.

The writing is fluent… I think this is an important book, which shows us what we have done to our world and what we might have to do if we are to survive in it. This is a book for anyone who cares about the planet and the environment.

Perhaps the best book so far to trace the epoch’s impacts on the world’s poor, and the slow violence that climate change metes out to them.

Runner up Booklife Book of the Year: Nature writing at its finest.

A year in the life of a Herefordshire meadow – beautifully written, verging on poetic.

A careful exploration of the rich cultural history of this priceless British habitat.

Lewis-Stempel's exquisite prose are bolstered by a vast breadth of knowledge and a fierce admiration of his subject. This is beautiful love letter to the natural world and a must-read!

Very rarely does a book reach out to its readers in such an immediate and engaging manner… A page-turning saga full of profound reflection… A truly remarkable achievement… This book transcends nature writing. Its quality of distinction is apparent before any exercise of critical faculty.

Macdonald is her father’s daughter; she takes photographs, but with words, brilliant ones. H is for Helen… G is for good.

Strange and beautiful… An incredible achievement.

It is in her descriptions of nature that Macdonald really excels… And…it’s the hawks themselves…which really come alive.

Never has the eye of a raptor assumed such fearful, beautiful meaning.

Big-hearted, joyful and blazing with gorgeous descriptions of nature, H is for Hawk is an unusual but very special memoir.

Lyrical, headlong, humourous.

As phenomenal, unusual, moving and agile as a fearsome bird of prey.

Helen’s skill is to cover so much beneath the camouflage of ‘nature writing’ – with perceptive, far-reaching and rather beautiful results.

An elegant, disturbing and heart-warming book.

A brilliantly beautiful evocation which interweaves her experiences as an austringer, a grieving daughter, an academic and simply a human being.

Destined to be a nature classic.

It is moving and personal in a way that few books of this kind are.

H is for Hawk is a mature, accomplished work: a touchstone for future memoirs, bibliomemoirs, and writing that deals with the natural environment and the self.

Beautifully written and interposed with literary references, it will captivate book lovers and bird lovers alike.

Likely to leave a lasting impression.

This is an encounter with a bird many of us only dream of seeing in the wild, so read this and fill a void.

You won’t find a better nature book this year.

This part-memoir, part-history, part-nature combination could have gone dreadfully wrong but it doesn’t. In fact, like Mabel, it flies.

Somehow the book had rattled me so much that, even after finishing it, I couldn’t let it go.

Helen Macdonald’s book is a worthy and unusual winner; it’s part grief-memoir, part history of falconry.

H is for Hawk deserves its acclaim as a classic of its kind.

A great read.

Macdonald’s unusual approach and her resonant natural descriptions make it an outstanding book.

H is for Hawk…is the most “A for Amazing” book I've read in a long while.

The deserved winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize, this is one of the most original works you’ll read this year.

The passion and conviction with which Macdonald tells an extraordinary story transcends any fear that this will be another “nature story”. Instead it is fascinating, moving and gripping throughout.

Winner of 2014’s Samuel Johnson prize, this is a captivating nature book as well as a moving elegy on love and life.

The book is almost faultless in its exploration of the relationship with one’s own consciousness as well as that of an animal.

I’ve never read anything like it before… The last lines brought tears to my eyes.

I must agree with the judges of the Samuel Johnson prize. Helen Macdonald’s incredible H Is for Hawk…is a truly original mixture… It is, as the flyleaf predicts, destined to become a classic of nature writing.

H is for Hawk is an extraordinary achievement – and a salutary reminder that animals are not symbols, but co-tenants of our living landscape.

Helen Macdonald’s prose streams on to the page with absolute clarity in this extraordinary book.

It really has been a privilege to read this book.

Although grief is the engine of the story, its most exceptional aspect is the beauty and force of its descriptions of birds and landscape, and its real star is the goshawk.

The winner of this year's Samuel Johnson Prize is one of the most captivating books I've read.

It is in no way a misery memoir. It is uplifting, poetic, exhilarating.

What makes the book outstanding is the beauty of her prose. It rightly won the prize.

Combining nature writing of the highest order…with a deeply affecting meditation on bereavement, this looks set to become a classic.

One of the most all-consumingly wonderful books I’ve read in ages.

Emphatically my book of the year.

I’ve read excerpts from this book and it sounds wild and strange and haunting.

It’s worthy winner most in that it shows how diverse non-fiction can be in itself.

It’s a treat – a truly original, if slightly mad, book.

I have never read anything that evokes the strange and broken landscape of bereavement more accurately.

Ultimately uplifting about the power of life, this has to be one of the best books of the year.

It is a timeless classic that leaves you wondering how you did without it before.

Wonderful.

The book is unforgettable.

Her book is so good that, at times, it hurt me to read it. It draws blood, in ways that seem curative.

To categorize this work as merely memoir, nature writing or spiritual writing would understate [Macdonald’s] achievement

Captivating and beautifully written, it’s a meditation on the bond between beasts and humans and the pain and beauty of being alive

To come across writing this good…is like spotting a swooping bird of prey on a woodland walk; it’s unexpected and thrilling, and the experience stays with you

It’s completely original

Macdonald writes poignantly but avoids sentimentality on taking her reader on this journey of discovery and ultimately of liberation

Both sad and beautiful

Macdonald’s nature writing is truly breathtaking… H is for Hawk is a work that beautifully explores the natural in the midst of the very personal

probably one of the most unusual non-fictions books I’ve read, but… one of the most heartfelt and intriguing ones

poetic and intriguing

H is for Hawk, her memoir of loss, writing, recovery and nature, drawing ingeniously on the life and work of T.H. White, covered this territory with ferocious honesty and eloquence

Combines lyrical nature writing with moving introspection.

Fiercely, grippingly brilliant.

Exceptionally well researched and written… It’s a wonderful book, it made me cry.

Macdonald's is a book about grief, the churlish indifference of the natural world to human emotions and the solitude of failure, but it is also about a "return from this strange hedgerow ontology to more ordinary humanity". It is heartbreaking and affirming at the same time.

A lyrical, moving probe into both the process of mourning and our relationship with the natural world.

One of the decade’s most arresting nature books