Vegan Bites: Two Books
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Today’s topic is books. I’ve rounded up quotes from vegan bloggers who have reviewed or written about two new books, Thanking The Monkey and The Compassionate Carnivore.
Book: Thanking The Monkey
The book is popular, hip, and accessible, but even the book’s description has problems:
“Thanking the Monkey is light on lectures meant to make you feel guilty if you’re not a leather-eschewing vegan.”
Gee, thanks. When vegans ‘lecture’ people about veganism, it’s not to make them feel guilty; it’s to make them think, and hopefully act, differently.
Quotes:
“Despite her efforts to remain as accessible to as many potential readers as possible–and, for the most part, I think she succeeds here–there are many who will likely reject the book out of hand due to a fundamental difference between her “loose” definition of animal rights and those who take animal rights very much to heart as an ethical matter.”
wrote Eric Prescott.
Overall, many people seem to like this book. Just remember, it’s intended as an introduction to animal rights, not a comprehensive discussion or in-depth theory. So, give it to the ignorant person in your life.
Book: The Compassionate Carnivore.
Obviously, vegans are going to have strong words about this idiotic book. First, humans aren’t carnivores. The term ‘carnivore” refers to animals that eat meat and only meat, like lions. Most humans are omnivores, not carnivores. Second, compassionate carnivore is an oxymoron when referring to humans. Eating dead flesh when there are nutritionally adequate alternatives is not a compassionate choice. There is no such thing as the compassionate carnivore.
Quotes:
“No matter how you treat a nonhuman animal you created to use and kill, what you’re doing cannot be called ethical because of the very premise of creating a nonhuman animal to use and kill. Why does that fact elude so many otherwise intelligent people?”
wrote Mary Martin.
“Sure, that is a lot better than antibiotic-laced animals eating cheap feed who never see the sunshine in factory farms, and the much higher price of such meat would certainly cut way down on meat consumption, at least for most of us non-millionaires, but is it really ethical to kill an animal just because you like how its meat tastes? I don’t think so!”
wrote Laurence Howell.
Clearly, vegans can’t recommend this book for any purpose. If you see it in the bookstore, turn it around so the cover doesn’t show. Or better yet, put a pro-vegan book in front of the stack.
So, there you have it. Two books with serious problems. What should we do about it? Well, we should write our own books!
I have no problem taking down a cookbook where a man holds two piglets lovingly and then inside describes how to kill and cook them (don’t rememer the title) and replacing it with Veganomincon. And placing hunting mags way on the bottom rack under other stuff. As a former bookstore clerk who had to clean up messes, I still have no problem doing this so I highly encourage fucking these sections up!
Laurence Howell on carnivore literature: “If you see it in the bookstore, turn it around so the cover doesn’t show. Or better yet, put a pro-vegan book in front of the stack.” HA!!! That’s my trick! I’ve been doing that with the Atkins book for years! I’m sure in some FBI manual that accounts for animal rights “terrorism”. Therefore, I leave my balaclava off when in bookstores….
“As a former bookstore clerk who had to clean up messes”
Me too!
Man, some people go crazy. The worst was always the magazine section, though. People take stacks of magazines into the cafe, spill coffee on them, tear out pages, wrinkle them all up… fixing the magazines at the end of the day
“I’m sure in some FBI manual that accounts for animal rights ‘terrorism’.”
You’re probably right. Haha.