Description

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024
A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE HAY FESTIVAL, SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, SPECTATOR AND iNEWS

‘A beautiful book’ – ANGELINA JOLIE
‘I will be recommending this to everyone’ – MATT HAIG
‘Quietly profound, beautifully written, Hare is now lodged in my heart’ – TRACY CHEVALIER

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Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and snoozed in your house for hours on end. This happened to me.

When lockdown led busy professional Chloe to leave the city and return to the countryside of her childhood, she never expected to find herself custodian of a newly born hare. Yet when she finds the creature, endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm, she is compelled to give it a chance at survival.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together and the challenges of caring for the leveret and preparing for its return to the wild. We witness an extraordinary relationship between human and animal, rekindling our sense of awe towards nature and wildlife. This improbable bond of trust serves to remind us that the most remarkable experiences, inspiring the most hope, often arise when we least expect them.

Publisher Review

I savoured every carefully chosen and perfectly polished word and I cared so deeply about Hare that I found myself holding my breath . . . This is more than a wildlife memoir, it's a philosophical masterpiece ruminating on our place as human beings in nature -- CLARE BALDING Raising Hare is an astounding achievement. Not since I read Salar the Salmon by Henry Williamson have I witnessed such insight into a creature of the wild. This is a great and important tale for our times, for all of us, in the same league as Ted Hughes, Alice Oswald, Thomas Hardy and indeed Henry Williamson himself. I am so pleased Chloe Dalton told us about raising hare. I will not forget it and nor will anyone who reads it -- MICHAEL MORPURGO This book is exceptional. It made me smile out loud, such a magical tale of a world turned upside down by a fragile wild thing - a leveret lost, a life found. A simply wonderful story, profoundly beautiful -- CHRIS PACKHAM A beautiful book that makes you think profoundly about how we so often tune out the natural world around us. Chloe Dalton is a tender, curious, wise, mind-expanding guide, connecting readers with the wild we humans once knew so well. I will be recommending this to everyone -- MATT HAIG A captivating and uplifting story about a chance encounter that proved utterly transformative. Beautifully written, touching and thought-provoking. It's stayed with me weeks after finishing the final sentence -- CATHY NEWMAN Utterly bewitched by this marvel of nature writing by Chloe Dalton with glorious illustrations by Denise Nestor -- CAROLINE SANDERSON