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Featherhood by Charlie Samson Gilmour
£8.99
Available
Product Ref. (e.g. ISBN, SKU)
9781474609487
Published:
18 Mar 2021
Format:
Paperback
Number of pages:
288 pages
Dimensions:
198x126x24mm
Weight:
0.260kgs
Author:
One Spring morning, a young magpie fell from its nest in a Bermondsey junkyard and landed in Charlie Gilmour's life. Abandoned by its parents, the black-and-white bird was unable to fly or even feed itself. It found an unlikely new magpie-father in Charlie, an accident-prone human as qualified for the role as a bird for babysitting. Terrified and starving, the magpie screamed for food every 20 minutes. Raw mincemeat. Grubs. Spiders. The bird grew in strength, and by the time it was well enough to spread its wings, an unbreakable bond had been forged across species. The magpie flew away only to return - a feathered new member of the family. Charlie didn't know it at the time, but birds like this already were part of his family.
'The best piece of nature writing since H is for Hawk, and the most powerful work of biography I have read in years' Neil Gaiman
'Wonderful - I can't recommend it too highly' Helen Macdonald
'One of those rare, enchanted books' Isabella Tree
'Beautiful - it made me cry' Simon Amstell
'I was entranced' Cathy Rentzenbrink
This is a story about birds and fathers.
About the young magpie that fell from its nest in a Bermondsey junkyard into Charlie Gilmour's life - and swiftly changed it. Demanding worms around the clock, riffling through his wallet, sharing his baths and roosting in his hair...
About the jackdaw kept at a Cornish stately home by Heathcote Williams, anarchist, poet, magician, stealer of Christmas, and Charlie's biological father who vanished from his life in the dead of night.
It is a story about repetition across generations and birds that run in the blood; about a terror of repeating the sins of the father and a desire to build a nest of one's own.
It is a story about change - from wild to tame; from sanity to madness; from life to death to birth; from freedom to captivity and back again, via an insane asylum, a prison and a magpie's nest.
And ultimately, it is the story of a love affair between a man and a magpie.
About the Author: Charlie Gilmour's writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard, VICE, and Vogue. His critically acclaimed memoir, Featherhood, was published in the UK in 2020 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson and has been translated into several languages. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
| Number of pages | 288 |
|---|
We will despatch your order as quickly as we can. If, for whatever reason, a product is out of stock we will contact you to discuss the likely delivery time or an alternative product.
| First Item | 2 Items & Over | |
|---|---|---|
| UK | £3.75 | £5.00 |
| EU | £15.00 | £30.00 |
| USA & Canada | £30.00 | £50.00 |
| Rest of the World | £45.00 | £60.00 |
| Collect in Store | free | free |
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2 Items & over @ £50.00 in total
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First Item @ £45.00
2 Items & over @ £60.00 in total
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