The Pine Barrens by John McPhee

Summary from Amazon:
"Most people think of New Jersey as a suburban-industrial corridor that runs between New York and Philadelphia. Yet in the low center of the state is a near wilderness, larger than most national parks, which has been known since the seventeenth century as the Pine Barrens.

The term refers to the predominant trees in the vast forests that cover the area and to the quality of the soils below, which are too sandy and acid to be good for farming. On all sides, however, developments of one kind or another have gradually moved in, so that now the central and integral forest is reduced to about a thousand square miles. Although New Jersey has the heaviest population density of any state, huge segments of the Pine Barrens remain uninhabited. The few people who dwell in the region, the "Pineys," are little known and often misunderstood. Here McPhee uses his uncanny skills as a journalist to explore the history of the region and describe the people―and their distinctive folklore―who call it home."

http://cdn.phillymag.com

Article from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/books/john-mcphees-pine-barrens-a-new-jersey-must-read.html

Article in The New Yorker about McPhee: http://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/eighty-five-from-the-archive-john-mcphee

A Pine Barrens Site: http://www.pineypower.com/geninfopbpg10.html

Pine Lands Alliance Site: http://www.pinelandsalliance.org/ecology/

National Park Service Site: https://www.nps.gov/pine/learn/index.htm

A 2015 article regarding the Pine Barrens:
http://www.app.com/story/news/investigations/2015/06/22/new-jersey-pinelands-stress/28894731/

http://www.pineypower.com/canoetrip/2canoes.jpg

An Analysis by a Master Naturalist: http://mamajoules.blogspot.com/2011/04/analysis-of-john-mcphees-pine-barrens.html

Recent Bus Tour Description in 2016 of the Pine Barrens: http://www.phillyvoice.com/groundbreaking-book-inspires-bus-tour-of-the-pinelands/

This is the tour site mentioned above for the Pine Barrens: http://www.pinelandsadventures.org/adventure/tour-john-mcphees-pine-barrens/

Philly Magazine: 13 Things you might not know about the Pine Barrens: http://www.phillymag.com/news/2016/02/12/pine-barrens-new-jersey/

Discussion Questions: (John Shiver will be leading the discussion, using his questions below.)

1.     Have you ever visited the Pine Barrens?  What were your impressions? Do you know any one from that area?

2.     Fact versus Fiction. What were your favorite tall tales of the Pine Barrens?  What did you think of Fred Brown’s memories versus other sources, e.g. Mexican plane crash, the Jersey Devil?

3.     How did the Pine Barrens unique geology lead to its relative isolation, despite its proximity to NYC and Philly? What are some of the unusual features of the Pine Barrens such as soil, water, minerals, plants, fruits, trees, fires?

4.     How did these resources contribute to its history of industry and occupation?

5.     How balanced and fair is the longstanding outsider perception of ‘Pineys”? Where did these perceptions come from?

6.     What are your thoughts about the contradictions around life in the PB, i.e. poaching, fox hunting, moonshining, land ownership, willing to do hard work but not holding a steady job, etc.

7.     What are some of the Pine Barrens gifts to our times?

8.     How did McPhee’s book contribute to preserving the Pine Barrens? How different is it today from 50 years ago?

http://www.pineypower.com/pinelandsmunicipalities.jpg

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H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

Summary from Amazon:
The instant New York Times bestseller and award-winning sensation, Helen Macdonald's story of adopting and raising one of nature's most vicious predators has soared into the hearts of millions of readers worldwide. Fierce and feral, her goshawk Mabel's temperament mirrors Helen's own state of grief after her father's death, and together raptor and human "discover the pain and beauty of being alive" (People). H Is for Hawk is a genre-defying debut from one of our most unique and transcendent voices.

Awards:
One of the New York Times Book Review's 10 Best Books of the Year

ON MORE THAN 25 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR LISTS: including TIME (#1 Nonfiction Book), NPR, O, The Oprah Magazine (10 Favorite Books), Vogue (Top 10), Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Seattle Times, San Francisco Chronicle (Top 10), Miami Herald, St. Louis Post Dispatch, Minneapolis Star Tribune (Top 10), Library Journal (Top 10), Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Slate, Shelf Awareness, Book Riot, Amazon (Top 20)

Reviews:
New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/books/review/helen-macdonalds-h-is-for-hawk.html?_r=0

New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/03/09/rapt

All About Birds Review: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/a-falconer-reviews-helen-macdonalds-acclaimed-bestseller-h-is-for-hawk/

Publisher, Grove Atlantic Website: http://www.groveatlantic.com/?title=H+Is+for+Hawk

You Tube Video with Author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1-hhQiah6s

Bucks County Audubon Society Accompanying Event: Falconry Demo, May 20th from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Click here is register and find more information: http://www.bcas.org/event/falconry-demo/

Related Movie: The Eagle Huntress, the Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAF4Vurt87I

Discussion: May 25th at 6:15 p.m. at The Doylestown Bookshop

Discussion Questions:
(Note: These questions are primarily from the publisher's Reading Guide and some have been altered. For the entire set of questions, feel free to visit the the site:
http://www.groveatlantic.com/?isbn=9780802123411#page=isbn9780802124739-readers)

1. What is your knowledge of raptors and falconry, before reading this book?

2. What are some of the themes that are threaded throughout the story?

3. Macdonald was eight years old when she first reads T. H. White’s The Goshawk, a book that proves a formative experience. She initially dislikes the book (p. 30): “Why would a grown-up write about not being able to do something?” How does Macdonald’s views on White’s book evolve over time? 

4. “The book you are reading is my story,” Macdonald writes. “It is not a biography of Terence Hanbury White. But White is a part of my story all the same. I have to write about him because he was there” (p. 38). What does Macdonald mean? How does understanding White’s life inform her own journey? How does our understanding of White’s book help us understand her own? Also, Macdonald cuts between her attempts to train Mabel with T. H. White’s attempts to train his goshawk. What are the similarities and differences in their training routines?

5. Macdonald writes, “What we see in the lives of animals are lessons we’ve learned from the world” (p. 60). Through closely observing her hawk’s life, what lessons does Helen ultimately learn from the world?

6. When Macdonald first trains her hawk to become accustomed to her presence, she explains that “making yourself disappear is the greatest skill in the world” (p. 68). Later, Macdonald says about being thrilled that her hawk has forgotten she’s there because it’s a sign of acceptance: “But there was a deeper, darker thrill. It was that I had been forgotten” (p. 73). Why does this excite Macdonald?

7. Macdonald goes through various emotional stages training her hawk. On one particular day, within a couple hours she goes from feeling like a “beneficent figure” to “the worst falconer in the history of the world.” Ultimately, she realizes, “I have lost the ability to disappear” (p. 93). How critical was this loss at this stage of her training? How important of a turning point is this for Macdonald?

8. A big step in Macdonald’s hawk training is “walking” Mabel in public. Macdonald fears what Mabel’s encounter with people will be like: “They are things to shun, to fear, to turn from, shielding my hawk” (p. 100). Is Macdonald also shielding herself? Why or why not?

9. Macdonald writes that each picture her father took was “a record, a testament, a bulwark against forgetting, against nothingness, against death” (p. 71). Later, she looks just once at the last photo her father took before he died. “[A]n empty London street . . . a wall tipped sideways from the vertical and running into the distance; a vanishing point of sallow, stormy sky.” It is a photo that she can “never stop seeing” (p. 106). Does Macdonald’s memory of this photo serve as a bulwark against forgetting her father? Or against her father’s death?

10. As Macdonald continues with Mabel’s training, she explains, “I felt incomplete unless the hawk was sitting on my hand: we were parts of each other. Grief and the hawk had conspired to this strangeness” (p. 135). How great a role does grief play in making Macdonald feel complete with Mabel?

11. At key points in the narrative, Macdonald is able to rely on various friends to help her through a specific emotional challenge or with Mabel’s training. How important is human friendship to Macdonald as she travels through her grief? Is it more of a challenge for her to recognize human contributions to her healing than Mabel’s? Why or why not?
you are entirely at the world’s mercy” (p. 177). What does Macdonald mean?

12. After her father’s memorial service, Macdonald thinks about her decision to “flee to the wild. It was what people did. The nature books I’d read told me so.” Macdonald realizes that this was “a beguiling but dangerous lie” that inevitably harmed Mabel. “I’d fled to become a hawk, but in my misery all I had done was turn the hawk into a mirror of me” (p. 218). How much responsibility does Macdonald bear for religiously following her nature books’ advice? Is Macdonald expressing enough empathy for her decisions? Which books is she referring to?