What do you think?
Rate this book
For a Handful of Feathers
A lifelong hunter and wild-game gourmet who has traveled the globe on expeditions with world-class sportsmen, Guy de la Valdéne purchased an 800-acre farm outside Tallahassee and set out to raise and hunt his favorite game bird, bobwhite quail. But de la Valdéne is also a naturalist at heart, and as he planted trees and divided fields, he found that running the farm compelled him to operate as both hunter and preservationist, predator and protector. De la Valdéne structures his reflections around a year in the life cycle of the bobwhite quail, from one generation's birth through mating and the raising of their young. Along the way, he gets pulled along on some side trips: to a masterpiece of controlled burning performed by a Vietnam veteran in a helicopter with 300 gallons of napalm, and to his own adventures when he improvises some dam-raising to fill his pond. For a Handful of Feathers reconciles a passion for hunting with a deep sentiment for the wild. Learning early on that while his work on the farm may awe his friends, he can never impress nature, de la Valdéne tries, with sensitivity and patience, to find his, and perhaps society's, place in the natural world. "A classic that compares well with Turgenev's A Sportsman's Notebook . . . simply and beautifully written."-The Bloomsbury Review; "For a Handful of Feathers is an American classic . . . a book as unapologetic as it is thoughtful about blood sport . . . . the verbal spark and pace of a fine novel."-Gray's Sporting Journal; "A gem that will appeal not only to hunters but to all readers who love the land."-Publishers Weekly.
- GenresNonfictionOutdoors
240 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1995
18 people are currently reading
162 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 18, 2018
This is a lyrical, gentle, lovely book. The author's quiet respect for, and humility toward, his land, his game, and his dogs captures the essence of field sports and its ethic. It thankfully avoids the simple-minded gee golly shucks thanking-the-Lord-for-this-or-that bumpkinism rampant in the genre and conjures the heartfelt connection true sportsmen have for their calling, escape, or, to me, simple pastime. If you ever want to explain to a perplexed friend, girlfriend, wife, hot neighbor, or clueless PETA enthusiast why you bird hunt, flyfish, or just sometimes wander around the countyside, river or lake with your head in the clouds, give them this book. Somehow, Valdene has put into words what you feel in your soul.
Read
December 15, 2017Guy de la Valdène - a spoiled blue-blooded frenchy snob - but he writes so beautifully.
His hypocrisy, which he pretends to be in touch with, is dappled with enough frankincense to be palatable.
This book is about quail and how the author transforms his Florida farm into a quail haven. He does so in order to hunt his dogs, impress his snobbish friends, and to kill and eat quail in order to satisfy his equally snobbish palate. Buttressed by a keen intellect, his writing is impressive and savory despite his aristocratic baloney.
“Herein we have an exhaustive sporting coda that doesn’t presume that we hunt in a vacuum, as if we could separate the land from the creatures that live there. The death of hunting will come not from the largely imagined forces of anti-hunting but by the death of habitat, the continuing disregard for the land in the manner of the psychopath burning down a house and then wondering why he still can’t live there.” ~ Jim Harrison ~ Introduction ~ For a Handful of Feathers ~ Guy de la Valdene
What most impressed me about this book was the dogs he wrote about. He is a dog man no doubt. Those that know me well, know that I am a sucker for a person who can adeptly write about dogs.
"There is just enough rock and roll left in me to dance to the music that brings back the memories. I dance in the fields, where no one sees me except the sun, the trees, and my dogs, who get upset when I act crazy. When I urge them to dance with me and they jump up and down they are happy again." ~ Guy de la Valdène
"I am a terrible dog trainer because the trait I like in dogs is the same I like in men: namely, civil disobedience." ~ Guy de la Valdène
"No one can have the part of me I give to my dogs. A gift as safe as loving a child, or for some as loving Christ; a part of me I guard carefully because it bears on my sanity. My dogs forgive the asshole in me, the anger in me, the arrogance in me, the brute in me. They forgive everything I do before I forgive myself. For me, the life and death of a dog is a calendar of time passing. I dream about my dogs, but recently the dreams have been turning into nightmares. One recurring scenario finds me hunting with Robin, the spaniel, on the ridge of a steep talus slope overlooking the Snake River in Idaho. The bitch runs after a cripple and follows the bird over the edge of the cliff. In my dream I watch Robin fall away, seemingly forever, a small tumbling figure against a mosaic of sagebrush, wheat, alfalfa fields, and water thousands of feet below. More recently I dreamed that suddenly, and with no warning, the same dog began shrinking, shrinking and barking and running in tiny circles around my feet, growing smaller and smaller, her eyes huge and brown and imploring. I threw my hat over her mouse-sized body but missed, and when she was the size of a fly she flew away.
I don't know what these dreams mean, but if they are meant to prepare me for my dog's eventual death I would like to remind my psyche that the bitch is only five years old, and to lay off for a while. On the other hand, perhaps these dreams are preparing me for my own death, or are fed by the guilt I feel when I kill something as beautiful and enviable as a bird. In any case, I'm sure that the communion I have with dogs should be channeled to my peers. However, as I think of man as the creator of desolation and not the center of reality, I don't, and I accept as a by-product of that choice the longing of loneliness, and the dark dreams that follow." ~ Guy de la Valdène
Despite his sometimes crippled analogies, Valdène is a slaunch. This is a book for every hunter interested in quail or not. The book is about Gentleman Bob but it is so much more than that; it's about nature and how humans (even tho a part of the same nature) can't help but fuck it up.
His hypocrisy, which he pretends to be in touch with, is dappled with enough frankincense to be palatable.
This book is about quail and how the author transforms his Florida farm into a quail haven. He does so in order to hunt his dogs, impress his snobbish friends, and to kill and eat quail in order to satisfy his equally snobbish palate. Buttressed by a keen intellect, his writing is impressive and savory despite his aristocratic baloney.
“Herein we have an exhaustive sporting coda that doesn’t presume that we hunt in a vacuum, as if we could separate the land from the creatures that live there. The death of hunting will come not from the largely imagined forces of anti-hunting but by the death of habitat, the continuing disregard for the land in the manner of the psychopath burning down a house and then wondering why he still can’t live there.” ~ Jim Harrison ~ Introduction ~ For a Handful of Feathers ~ Guy de la Valdene
What most impressed me about this book was the dogs he wrote about. He is a dog man no doubt. Those that know me well, know that I am a sucker for a person who can adeptly write about dogs.
"There is just enough rock and roll left in me to dance to the music that brings back the memories. I dance in the fields, where no one sees me except the sun, the trees, and my dogs, who get upset when I act crazy. When I urge them to dance with me and they jump up and down they are happy again." ~ Guy de la Valdène
"I am a terrible dog trainer because the trait I like in dogs is the same I like in men: namely, civil disobedience." ~ Guy de la Valdène
"No one can have the part of me I give to my dogs. A gift as safe as loving a child, or for some as loving Christ; a part of me I guard carefully because it bears on my sanity. My dogs forgive the asshole in me, the anger in me, the arrogance in me, the brute in me. They forgive everything I do before I forgive myself. For me, the life and death of a dog is a calendar of time passing. I dream about my dogs, but recently the dreams have been turning into nightmares. One recurring scenario finds me hunting with Robin, the spaniel, on the ridge of a steep talus slope overlooking the Snake River in Idaho. The bitch runs after a cripple and follows the bird over the edge of the cliff. In my dream I watch Robin fall away, seemingly forever, a small tumbling figure against a mosaic of sagebrush, wheat, alfalfa fields, and water thousands of feet below. More recently I dreamed that suddenly, and with no warning, the same dog began shrinking, shrinking and barking and running in tiny circles around my feet, growing smaller and smaller, her eyes huge and brown and imploring. I threw my hat over her mouse-sized body but missed, and when she was the size of a fly she flew away.
I don't know what these dreams mean, but if they are meant to prepare me for my dog's eventual death I would like to remind my psyche that the bitch is only five years old, and to lay off for a while. On the other hand, perhaps these dreams are preparing me for my own death, or are fed by the guilt I feel when I kill something as beautiful and enviable as a bird. In any case, I'm sure that the communion I have with dogs should be channeled to my peers. However, as I think of man as the creator of desolation and not the center of reality, I don't, and I accept as a by-product of that choice the longing of loneliness, and the dark dreams that follow." ~ Guy de la Valdène
Despite his sometimes crippled analogies, Valdène is a slaunch. This is a book for every hunter interested in quail or not. The book is about Gentleman Bob but it is so much more than that; it's about nature and how humans (even tho a part of the same nature) can't help but fuck it up.
November 25, 2025
“For a Handful of Feathers” by Guy De La Valdene is effectively a love letter to quail and their management. This book felt akin to works like “A Sand County Almanac” and other such memoirs of a place. Valdene spreads the book over four seasons and gives insight to what the quail need in each. He outlines his planting routines, food plot choices, and prescribed burn schedules. This isn’t a book about hunting alone, it shows how with proper care and insight a game species can be managed and even strengthened with proper care. The author also is fully aware of his privilege both as a land owner and someone who came from financial means. This is nature writing at its best. You are privy to the mind of someone who truly cares for the animals he both loves to eat and wishes to see survive the perils of a shrinking future wild. As with the other works I’ve read by Valdene, I’m left with a renewed love for wild spaces and more importantly an envy at the beauty in which he writes about the outdoors. He was truly a master.
July 15, 2020
Guy de la Valdène is a rare example of a frenchman that can write beautiful, poetic english. He philosophies on hunting, preserving the natural habitat of quail, and the human condition.
His life nowadays is spent maintaining and preserving an 800 acre farm in northern Florida, where he attempts to increase the population of bobwhite quail, so that he can hunt them lazily each winter but more importantly pay back his killing debt from all the hunting of his youth.
The book walks you through the seasons, and as it does, through the mental phases that a hunter goes through as he grows old. His sensitive yet harsh writing will have you alternate between a burning desire to go bird hunting, and the guilt of the same thing.
The lessons and ponderings on the order of nature, and man's disastrous effects on it, leave you wondering if hunting is good & natural, or if it is at all worth it for only a handful of feathers.
His life nowadays is spent maintaining and preserving an 800 acre farm in northern Florida, where he attempts to increase the population of bobwhite quail, so that he can hunt them lazily each winter but more importantly pay back his killing debt from all the hunting of his youth.
The book walks you through the seasons, and as it does, through the mental phases that a hunter goes through as he grows old. His sensitive yet harsh writing will have you alternate between a burning desire to go bird hunting, and the guilt of the same thing.
The lessons and ponderings on the order of nature, and man's disastrous effects on it, leave you wondering if hunting is good & natural, or if it is at all worth it for only a handful of feathers.
March 10, 2024
Beautiful, poetic book detailing a year spent managing a quail plantation in the Red Hills of Florida. The strong imagery of the natural world is thorough and lovely. Four stars rather than five for the occasional racist and sexist asides.
March 8, 2025
If I was a writer, I would want to write like Valdene. The language is impeccable, and the content is vulnerable and honest. His ambitions run up against reality as he learns through trial and error the ways of raising bobwhite quail for hunting on his “farm”.
September 20, 2022
i’m not a hunter but this is one of the best books i’ve read jn quite some time.
January 15, 2025
Very enjoyable book about the sporting life and a love of birds, dogs, and everything that goes with them. Good perspective from an older hunter. Well written, insightful, and thought-provoking.
October 15, 2025
A prefect book to bring with you to a rainy weekend at camp.
November 28, 2025
Interesting and Introspective musings of an obsessive quail hunter. Really enjoyed the philosophical perspectives on hunting
July 30, 2016
Decent book, but de la Valdene was a bit random at the end. Like he was on a bender and just swinging at self-constructed strawmen. Kinda weird. Self-evident that he is a European who does not really understand America. So he constructed these stereotypes to argue against.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 11, 2014
Great read.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews