Once-in-a-While Book Club
Our next meeting is January 25, 2026,
and we’re reading Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton.
As of 1/1/26, we are full!
Contact me if you’d like to join us at our next meeting or if you’re interested in an online Zoom book club.
The Once-in-a-While Book Club is for book lovers who can’t commit to monthly meetings (I crack myself up). It’s an afternoon of bookish conversation that happens around my dining room table once-in-a-while. Read the book. Show up comfy and casual. I’ll do the rest.
Books we’ve read together so far
once-in-a-while book club DETAILS
Who: Limited to the first eight book-loving humans who email me at LorrieTom@LorrieT.com and say they’d like to attend. Address supplied after your spot is confirmed. Feel free to share this with a friend!
What:
Read our book selection by January 25th.
Show up COMFY and CASUAL.
Light snacks, tea, and fizzy water served. If you’d like to bring something to share, that’s welcome but not expected.
When: Sunday, January 25th from 3:30 to 5 PM PACIFIC.
Where: My dining room table in my actual house! Address supplied after enrollment confirmation, but for your planning purposes, I live in Rancho Palos Verdes near Peninsula High School.
How: Email me (LorrieTom@LorrieT.com) to see if there is still space and then I’ll send you my address.
Cost: This one’s on me. It’s free.
If you have any questions, contact me.
And remember, even if you hate this book, come to the meeting cuz different opinions make for good conversations—at least in The Land of Lorrie Tom Writes (and Reads).
Always reading and writing,
Lorrie
Here are more details about Raising Hare from the publisher:
NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • FINALIST FOR THE 2025 WOMEN'S PRIZE • 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.
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, TIME, The Economist, Scientific American, Slate
“Moving. . . . Impart[s] valuable lessons about slowing down and the beauty in the unexpected.”—USA Today
“A philosophical masterpiece ruminating on our place as human beings in nature.”—Matt Haig, author of The Midnight Library
“A perfect testimony to the transformative power of love.”—Margaret Renkl, author of The Comfort of Crows
Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and bounded around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, more than two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end. 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 difficult 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, weasels, feral cats, raptors, or 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 firsthand 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.