H is for Hawk

Helen Macdonald

Helen Macdonald’s book is part memoir of grief, part close literary study, and somehow also a tale of rewilding—not of the landscape, but of the author herself.

Vesper Flights

Helen Macdonald

The titular essay in this collection concerns the flight of swifts: twice a day, at twilight, they fly high up into the sky, a movement Macdonald describes as both a devotion and a kind of planning.

Orbital

Samantha Harvey

Six people—four astronauts and two cosmonauts—may be among the last to circle the Earth.

The Shapeless Unease

Samantha Harvey

Struck by the sudden and untimely death of her cousin, and distressed by the terrible political order, Samantha Harvey finds that she cannot sleep.