For a while now Jonathan Safran Foer has been my favorite author. So much so, that when I email friends about how much I enjoy reading his books, the Gmail ads that customize to the content of my emails actually mistake me to be gay.
This is a problem.
It is a problem, not because of the google ads, but because of this: Jonathan Safran Foer is in his early 30s and he has written three best-selling books so far. Chances are he will write more books over the next couple of years, and each time one of his books is scheduled to appear it is almost certain that I will be terribly nervous about the possibility of extreme disappointment. Think about it: If you like Thomas Mann, and you've read all his works, you might be sad that there isn't anything more forthcoming, but you don't have to fear being let down. For me, with this author, I am always running this risk!
This being the case, when the Eating Animals appeared in November 2009, you might guess that I was particularly on edge, because unlike his earlier works Everything is Illuminated or Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close, Eating Animals was going to be a piece of non-fiction.
As I wrote in a different blog post some months back, I was actually avoiding the book, because I was not convinced my favorite writer's voice would adapt to this new genre. I couldn't help myself from thinking about whether Eating Animals might turn into 300+ pages of stale moralizing about becoming vegetarian. Or it might high-jack what little time I have to read non-academic papers and force me into digesting a lecture on this 30 year-olds food philosophy.
Why - when you're such a brilliant story teller - would you write a non-fiction book, Jonathan?!
...now that I am about to finish reading the book, I almost laugh at these questions: Eating Animals is well-researched non-fiction, but it is still also a story. It is a story about what we eat and how it is produced. It is a story about our personal relation to food, and what it means to who we are. It is a story about a young father trying to make the best decisions for his son, and it is a story about why our food choices matter.
Eating animals is not meant to turn you vegetarian, but asks of you to take just a little time to think about the one choice you will continue to make throughout your life; namely what type of foods you will eat. In return for your time, this book offers you insightful entertainment, intelligent humor and the type of stimulating reading experience I have come to expect in Mr. Foer's work.
In summary: Although I had exceedingly high expectations, I was not let down, and I may continue to say that Jonathan Safran Foer is my favorite author. So much so that...
The book's official website can be found
here, and the authors "Project Museum" is linked to
here.
On my other blog, I have a video of Mr Foer reading the first chapter of Eating Animals.
The next book on my reading list is Bonobo Handshake by fellow Ptblogger Vanessa Woods.
If you care to share what you are reading at the moment, leave a comment below or blurt it out on twitter.
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