Featherhood

Gilmour... is fearless in sharing himself with readers. As he works through his relationships, the emotional freight is not always subtle, but this comes from a generosity and openness on his part, which, ultimately, is what makes "Featherhood" so lovely and inviting. Gilmour practices no magic here; he distracts the reader with no glitzy baubles. He gives us a man and a bird and tells us, best he can, what they've come to know about the world as it is. He is willing to spill a little blood. -- C J Hauser * THE NEW YORK TIMES * Bird and author explore this explosive terrain in an exhilarating dance of transformation, from wild to tame, captivity to freedom and darkness to light. -- Ariane Bankes * THE TABLET, Best Books of the Year * A delicately choreographed story of salvation through a bird, with echoes of Barry Hines's classic A Kestrel For A Knave. -- Craig Brown * MAIL ON SUNDAY, Best Books of the Year * Gilmour's unforgettable memoir is both a beautiful piece of nature writing about caring for a magpie and a brutally honest account of his difficult relationship with his late father, the poet Heathcote Williams. -- Sarah Hughes * I NEWSPAPER, Best Books of 2020 * Featherhood is an incisive, funny and at times traumatic study of the damage done by destructive father-son relationships. * THE OLDIE * A tender coming-of-age memoir. It's an intelligent debut that shows that Gilmour, for all his celebrity family connections, is undoubtedly a remarkable writer in his own right. -- Lucy Knight * THE SUNDAY TIMES, Memoir of the Year * Written with economy, insight, and rare beauty - a perfect nature memoir for our times -- Andrew Lycett * THE SPECTATOR * Touching and true, with flashes of black humour, it's a fascinating story. It's also a brilliant examination of nature vs nurture. Gilmour is certainly a born writer. -- Cressida Connelly * THE SPECTATOR, Books of the Year * I'm having a lovely time with Featherhood by Charlie Gilmour. He is such a tender writer, the book is a magical encounter with birds and fathers. * Andrew O'Hagan in GUARDIAN * Emotional, touching and often odd, Gilmour's memoir about two key relationships - one with his late father and the other with a magpie - lingers long after the final page. -- Sarah Hughes * I NEWSPAPER * A good time in a weird way - I have never read anything so filthy * Nell Zink, author of THE WALL CREEPER * [An] affecting and beautifully written memoir. * THE BOOKSELLER, Editor's Choice * A wonderful, moving book. His account of raising a young magpie offers a lovely insight into this fascinating bird * James Macdonald Lockhart, author of RAPTOR * Featherhood is an incisive, funny and at times traumatic study of the damage done by destructive father-son relationships and the struggle to smash generational cycles. -- David Marsland * EVENING STANDARD * The extraordinary story of an extraordinary family * Sophie Heawood, author of THE HANGOVER GAMES * Utterly absorbing, astonishingly well-written, full of heart, Featherhood is the most arresting book I've read for a very long time * Cressida Connolly, author of AFTER THE PARTY * I loved Featherhood. About nature and growth, about belonging and not belonging, it is beautiful * Andrew O'Hagan, author of THE ILLUMINATIONS * A beautiful book, sensitive and compelling - it made me cry * Simon Amstell * A profound exploration of grief, fragmented families, nature versus nurture and whether we are doomed to repeat the sins of our fathers. But it is also a gladdening celebration of what it is to nurture and bring forth new life. -- Caroline Sanderson * SUNDAY EXPRESS S MAGAZINE * A soaring debut... A sincere and searing tale of loss, addictive despair, the redemptive power of love, the natural world and a shit-dropping, feather-moulting talking magpie... This will undoubtedly be held up alongside H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald's memoir that saw her tame her grief and a bird of prey in her living room. But Featherhood is an equal, if

Charlie Gilmour was born in 1989 and raised in London and Sussex. He read history at Cambridge University, with a brief interlude in 2011 at Her Majesty's Prison Wandsworth. He lives in South London with his wife, Janina, and their daughter, Olga.