Readin' Vegans -- "Raising Hare"

On July 28, we'll discuss Raising Hare: a Memoir, by Chloe Dalton (Pantheon, 2025). You need not have attended a previous discussion to join us for this one. We'll discuss the book until about 8:00, followed by open conversation.

The Zoom link to the discussion is posted on the right, visible to those who RSVP. PLEASE NOTE: THIS LINK DISAPPEARS AT THE MEETUP START TIME, THAT IS, 7:00 PM. We'll be available from 6:50 on to help anyone who might need extra time to connect. If you can't get on, call us at 303-300-2368.
We hope you can join us!

If you'd like to read ahead:
August 25 - A City on Mars, by Kelly & Zach Weinersmith
Sept. 22 - Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, by A.A. Milne
Oct. 27 - Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love (fic), by Marianne Cronin
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Raising Hare: A moving and fascinating meditation on freedom, trust, loss, and our relationship with the natural world, explored through the story of one woman’s unlikely friendship with a wild hare.

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 slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.

In February 2021, Dalton stumbles upon a newborn hare—a leveret—that had been chased by a dog. Fearing for its life, she brings it home, only to discover how impossible it is to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day. Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon by foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and even people, she never tried to restrict it to the house. Each time the hare leaves, Chloe knows she may never see it again. Yet she also understands that to confine it would be its own kind of death.

Raising Hare chronicles their journey together, while also taking a deep dive into the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore. We witness first-hand the joy at this extraordinary relationship between human and animal, which serves as a reminder that the best things, and most beautiful experiences, arise when we least expect them.