Who am I? What makes me different from everyone else? Daniel Davis recounts the remarkable science that has answered one version of these questions

Ostensibly about a set of genes that we all have and need, this book is really about the men and women who discovered them and worked out what they do. It's a search for the essence of scientific greatness by a scientist who is headed that way himself

The Compatibility Gene cuts through the complexity to reveal the startling truth about perhaps the most important section of the molecule that defines what it means to be human

Davis weaves a warm biographical thread through his tale of scientific discovery, revealing the drive and passion of those in the vanguard of research

Davis makes the twists and turns all count

Davis ranges energetically through the research. Cultural references and anecdotes abound

A fascinating, expertly told story

The genes that make you a true individual ... Davis provides a well-written and easy-to-read account of the sometimes complicated biology behind the crucial genes that affect our lives so profoundly

Wonderful pen-portraits of the many scientists involved in this fast-moving field ... 5 out of 5 stars

Dr. Davis's readable and informative book takes the reader into unexpectedly interesting corners of both the immune system and the lives of immunologists. It is packed with an insider's knowledge - not just of the field, but of where its bodies are buried

An elegantly written, unexpectedly gripping account of how scientists painstakingly unravelled the way in which a small group of genes ... crucially influence, and unexpectedly interconnect, various aspects of our lives... Lab work has rarely been made to seem more interesting or heroic

What she has achieved is a very rare thing in literature - a completely realistic account of a human relationship with animal consciousness… It is a soaring performance and Mabel is the star.

Cunningly plaited and – almost – devastating… It deserves to sell shedloads and win prizes, it is naturalist writing of that spectacular quality that is literature too.

A wondrous book of loss and recovery… When [Macdonald] matches her factual know-how…with her poet’s eye, it is excellent… An exceptional book of twisted growth.

Absorbing… This memoir is lit with flashes of that grace, a grace that sweeps down to the reader to hold her wrist tight with beautiful, terrible class. The discovery of the season.

Astounding.

People talk about books that change your life. I loved the fact that this book does something much more valuable. It doesn’t change anything. It leaves everything just where it was, only more so; more distinct, more itself. It opens your eyes. And it deepens what we have always known; that we live side by side with each other, as we do with the creatures around us.

A talon-sharp memoir that will thrill and chill you to the bone... Fascinating.

Mesmerising, decisive and devastating… Her description of Mabel in flight should be etched into every birdwatcher's field guide... Macdonald is a nature writer supreme, arguably the best practitioner of this art form writing today.

A soaring triumph.

Beautiful.

Strange yet compelling... Macdonald’s poetic prose soars… An uplifting message that…sends the heart soaring.

Vivid and fascinating.

Soars beyond genres, and burns with emotional and intellectual intensity.

We can’t recommend this strange, clever, beautiful book highly enough.

A soliloquy that sings from the pages. Truly beautiful.

Heartbreaking.

In fifty years time – a hundred – H is for Hawk will still defy easy definition. Readers will see wildness a little differently and they will still finish with a silent cheer for a fellow human starting to re-engage with the world. File under classic.

Poetic, imaginative and richly persuasive prose. Macdonald’s sensitivity to English weather, landscape and natural habitat is extraordinary; she is a word-painter of the subtlest palette and an audio recorder of peerless quality.

Macdonald makes nature writing new.

Extraordinary… A searing study of bereavement and a meditation on man’s place in the natural world… Written with vigour, leavened with humour, it doesn’t just sing, it flies.

Unusual and incredibly moving.

A masterpiece.

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