'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.
Read MoreOne of the best books I've ever read. I urge you to seek it out, buy it, and be enchanted. It's incredibly moving and I loved every single page - Elton JohnBeautiful, wise, compassionate and powerful, Featherhood is one of those rare, enchanted books that sings to the soul of what it is to be - Isabella Tree, author of WILDINGWhat a book! I was entranced. A personal reckoning which is simultaneously brutal and joyous. It's full of light. I want to tell everyone about it - Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of THE LAST ACT OF LOVEA beautiful book, sensitive and compelling - it made me cry - Simon AmstellThis stunning memoir flashes with as many colours as its enchanting subject, and draws us into a world of eccentric characters impossible to predict or forget. Savage, mischievous, moving, sublime - Rhik Samadder, author of I NEVER SAID I LOVED YOUThe extraordinary story of an extraordinary family - Sophie Heawood, author of THE HANGOVER GAMESI loved Featherhood. About nature and growth, about belonging and not belonging, it is beautiful - Andrew O Hagan, author of THE ILLUMINATIONSUtterly 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