The Private Life of the Hare cover art

The Private Life of the Hare

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

‘To see a hare sit still as stone, to watch a hare boxing on a frosty March morning, to witness a hare bolt . . . these are great things. Every field should have a hare.’

The hare, a night creature and country-dweller, is a rare sight for most people. We know them only from legends and stories. They are shape-shifters, witches’ familiars and symbols of fertility. They are arrogant, as in Aesop’s The Hare and the Tortoise, and absurd, as in Lewis Carroll’s Mad March Hare. In the absence of observed facts, speculation and fantasy have flourished. But real hares? What are they like?

In The Book of the Hare, John Lewis-Stempel explores myths, history and the reality of the hare. And in vivid, elegant prose he celebrates how, in an age when television cameras have revealed so much in our landscape, the hare remains as elusive and magical as ever.

©2019 John Lewis-Stempel (P)2019 Penguin Audio Ecosystems & Habitats Environment Nature & Ecology Outdoors & Nature Science Conservation Natural History Magic
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Some lovely facts and history but I felt too much content referring to how to eat a hare! Not sure the accents were needed either 😕

To many recipes

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Having read, and love to, ‘The Running Hare’ by this author, I was excited to find and read this title.
Sadly, it is a disappointing collection of facts which I am certain I could have researched for myself with little difficulty.
The title ‘The Secret Life of the Hare’ is somewhat misleading, this being more accurately and account of how humans have interacted with and mythologised the hare.

Very disappointing

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