Why nature inspires optimism

Award-winning author of H is for Hawk and celebrator of the natural world Helen Macdonald explains why writing her new book Vesper Flights has made her optimistic for the future of our planet.

Helen Macdonald

Writer and naturalist Helen Macdonald is best known for her award-winning 2014 memoir H is for Hawk. Her most recent publication, Vesper Flights, is a collection of essays on our relationship to the natural world. Both books were international best-sellers. Formerly a historian of science at the University of Cambridge, she writes for the New York Times Magazine and presents TV documentaries on the natural world for PBS and the BBC. She’s currently writing a book on Midway Atoll, albatrosses, military history, environmental guilt and our conceptions of the end of the world.

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