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Winner of the Wainwright Prize and shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, this instant Sunday Times bestseller is the magical true story of a woman and a baby hare who form an incredible bond
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR NATURE WRITING
WINNER OF THE BOOKS ARE MY BAG READERS AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION, HATCHARDS AND BIOGRAPHERS’ CLUB FIRST BIOGRAPHY PRIZE
A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR THE HAY FESTIVAL, SUNDAY TIMES, THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, SPECTATOR, ECONOMIST, iNEWS and TIME
‘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
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 Chloe, a city-dwelling professional with a high-pressure job, finds a newly born hare, endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm, she is compelled to give it a chance at survival – despite being the least likely caregiver to this wild animal.
Raising Hare is the story of their journey together. It chronicles an extraordinary relationship between human and animal, rekindling our sense of awe towards nature and wildlife. Their improbable bond of trust reminds us that the most remarkable experiences, inspiring the most hope, often arise when we least expect them.
This edition includes a moving new chapter
“A great and important tale for our times”
Michael Morpurgo
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“This is more than a wildlife memoir, it’s a philosophical masterpiece”
Clare Balding
“This book is exceptional. A simply wonderful story, profoundly beautiful”
Chris Packham
“A glorious book – for its warmth, its precision, its joy. It’s not dreamy or romantic about the natural world – it’s something far better than that”
Katherine Rundell
“Written with tenderness and lyricism from someone who has taken the time to reconnect to nature and the wild within. A beautiful book”
Angelina Jolie
Chloe Dalton
Chloe Dalton is a writer, political adviser and foreign policy specialist. She spent over a decade working in the UK Parliament and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and has advised, and written for and with, numerous prominent figures. She divides her time between London and her home in the English countryside. Raising Hare is her first book. It won the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction, selected as a Waterstones Book of the Year and as the Hay Festival Book of the Year. It was a Critics Best Books pick for The Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Spectator and iNews and was Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month.
chloedalton.uk | @chloedaltonuk
“Learning to care for the leveret was a process of experimentation, painstakingly hand-feeding it with powdered kitten milk, which it consumed in microscopic quantities. Warm and soft and almost weightless, it fitted easily within the curve of my hand. I moved it to a bedroom at the farthest end of the barn, where I thought it would be least disturbed, and with a door opening on to the enclosed inner garden. I cut a hole in the side of its box, so the leveret could come and go as it wished.”
Read an extract from Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton in the Guardian.
Guardian