EATING ANIMALS

Jonathan Safran Foer, who wrote the novel EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, published in 2005, offers a smartly written nonfiction look at eating creatures that provide us with meat—from pork and beef to poultry and fish. Listeners may find the tone of his argument smug, even irritating, as he makes his well-researched, emotional plea for "ethical vegetarianism." Sometimes downright Swiftian in his suggestions, Foer says, "When we eat factory-farmed meat, we live, literally, on tortured flesh." Jonathan Ross narrates Foer's data, stories, and anecdotes intelligently. Ross neatly handles concerns about the environmental impact of meat-eating, including food-borne illnesses and the rivers of animal fecal matter contaminating our waterways, as well as augments his case with horrific descriptions of inhumane industrial slaughterhouses. Foer’s chilling treatise will leave the carnivores among us chewing on this gastronomical dilemma. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2010]