There are many facets to this engrossing, stimulating book: class and gender, the lines between urban and wild, the role of things (like birds and books) in connecting with the past. Most of all, though, it is a book about how the world changes. We may find it difficult to get the answers we want from the books we read, but books like H is for Hawk teach us things we didn't know we needed to know. Both Macdonald and White suggest that life, not books, teaches us how to live. But books like Helen Macdonald's can seep into our consciousness and aid the process.