What are the Must Read books for animal activists?

[Recommended reading/Book reviews]

I just read two more excellent books, which follow another book I recently read and appreciated. (Speciesism by Joan Dunayer, An American Trilogy by Steven Wise and An Unnatural Order by Jim Mason).

I have a long list of books that I wish everyone on earth would read, but wonder which ones I am overlooking. So here is my question: which books do you wish everyone would read, especially animal activists?

[Jordan Wyatt]

Dr Will Tuttles "World Peace Diet", the unabridged audiobook is read by the author, 13 hours long.  Dr Tuttle's book is very spiritual, but still marvelous, I love his journey at the end, I interviewed him today for a future episode, where I'll compare his journey to the ending of Shawshank Redemption :-)

www.worldpeacediet.org 

Audiobook available now on iTunes worldwide! :-) 

[Cyndi Rook]

In my original post to Barbara's query, I went where I assumed no one else would because I think we need the Critical Animal Studies piece as well as straight-up vegan education in order to change culture over the long term. That said, I feel like I'm taking another leap, but don't we really need to read and be very familiar with Singer's Animal Liberation even though I dare say most of us here aren't adherents? It can take a while for new vegans to even hear the names Regan, Francione, and Steiner, but if they find peta or any number of "animal rights" podcasts and blogs, they will have ample access to Singer. I'd say we need to be able to counter that with credibility.

 

[Tim Gier]

It's not a book, but I've just posted a link to Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" in a forum post. Every advocate and activist should read it. http://arzone.ning.com/forum/topics/martin-luther-king-jr-on-civil-...

[Louise, London]

I love that quote Tim ! Just read Martin Luther King's autobiography and just beginning Gandhi's experiments with truth. I wish fervently there were a MLK or Gandhi for the animals. Someone whose words made people slow down and really listen, move them into compassionate action. I'm sure that non violent speaking and protesting is the most effective way. Am just beginning to really find out the truth of what is happening on factory farms and in abattoirs, been a vegan for a while but had no idea of the scale of brutality and horror. Facing it, and facing people's denial, kind of knocked me off balance this week, but today I feel positive again. I'm sure it gets easier as time goes by, but as i lost my balance it helped me to understand people's denial, to see it is a way of coping, though unfortunately leads them to create more suffering. Someone I was talking to about animal rights a few weeks ago was trying to grasp it, with his mind. I said if you just move down to your heart, and feel for the animals, its simple. He said 'but that would really hurt'. It does indeed. Still, people like Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Emiline Pankurst, show us what is possible, and how quickly injustices that are so endemic can transform when there is a collective loving non violent movement for change. As this quote say's so perfectly, until the injustice is revealed it festers and creates tension in people's consciousness. the only way it will be healed is for people to find the strength to cope with the pain of seeing how we have been treating animals. The review of The World Peace Diet was interesting, seems to be saying that people will never be at peace with themselves or each other, when they aren't looking at the violent way they are treating other living beings. Looking forward to reading that as it sounds like Dr Will Tuttle may draw many threads together.

[Cyndi Rook]

Have you read Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights yet, reviewed it anywhere? I received it today so it goes in the queue. Didn't you have your own reading list or library contents posted somewhere online?
 
Roger Yates said:

I agree about Steiner. Both Anthropocentrism and Its Discontents and Animals and the Moral Community are both worthwhile. I would suggest that people read Regan's Defending Animal Rights before The Case. As Oliver rightly states, the later is a long and complicated read. Defending - or the book Carolyn recommended, Empty Cages - are worth reading before one tackles The Case.

I would also recommend Francione's Animals as Persons which, like Defending Animal Rights, is a set of essays made into a book.

Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka's Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (2011) looks set to become important. Shamelessly, my last recommendation (for now!) is Issues in Green Criminology: Confronting Harms Against Environments, Humanity and Other Animals, edited by Piers Beirne and Nigel South. This has a set of brilliant essays, not least, "Vivisection: the case for abolition" by Tom Regan and the next chapter, "Debating 'Animal Rights' Online" by one Roger Yates (shameless self-promotion (c) Jordan Wyatt). 

[Tim Gier]

Marion Nestle (FoodPolitics.com) says this on her blog today:

I’m at the Emma Willard school in Troy, NY today and will miss the noon USDA conference call announcing new school nutrition standards.  I will post on them tomorrow.  In the meantime…

Sarah Wu (aka Mrs. Q), Fed Up With Lunch: How One Anonymous Teacher Revealed the Truth About School Lunches–and How We Can Change Them!  Chronicle Books, 2011.

I did a blurb on this one:

Only someone who has actually eaten what our kids are fed in school—every day for an entire school year—could write so convincing an expose.  Mrs. Q did not set out to be an activist, but her book is a compelling case study of what’s wrong with our school food system and what all of us need to do to fix it.  Her account of what one person can do should inspire every parent to advocate for better food for kids in school as well as out.

Novella Carpenter and Willow Rosenthal.  The Essential Urban Farmer.  Penguin, 2011. 

This book is a must for anyone interested in growing food plants in urban environments.  Carpenter wrote Farm City about her own inner city farm in Oakland, CA and teams up with the founder of City Slicker Farms, also in Oakland.  They cover everything you can think of, from dealing with contaminated soil to growing enough food to start your own business. 

They illustrate the how-to with photos, diagrams, and line drawings that make it all look easy.  Urban farming IS easy, at least in miniature (tomatoes, lettuce, herbs, and blueberries flourish on my Manhattan terrace).  It doesn’t have to be a big deal.  Go for it!

[Angela Wright]

Barbara DeGrande said:

What a shock! As you may know, I value the work of Dr. Tuttle as well. 

[Angela Wright]

Such a lovely gentle soul. I have met him on a vegan cruise that I now do annually.    www.atasteofhealth.org

He does a meditation class on the cruise at the time when I do yoga. Having hurt my knee last year I went to his meditation class instead and discovered him and his wife. It is wonderful to meet really genuine vegan /AR people. I shall see them in March and cannot wait.

[Angela Wright]

I struggle to read AR books especially when there is a lot of graphic detail. Nothing will stop me being a vegan, as I know that is the only way for me and mine to live. I have tried a few, which have been hard going and not told me anything I didn't know (except perhaps numbers which will change anyway). Some books use language that I do not fully understand especially philosophical ones, and I probably don't get far with them.

One I do like is

The Extended Circle ---Jon Wynne -Tyson    It consists of comments  made over the centuries by various people in alphabetical order, so can be read a page at a time. Useful to have in the loo!!!!

[Angela Wright]

Barbara DeGrande said:

What a shock! As you may know, I value the work of Dr. Tuttle as well. 

[Angela Wright]

I struggle to read AR books especially when there is a lot of graphic detail. Nothing will stop me being a vegan, as I know that is the only way for me and mine to live. I have tried a few, which have been hard going and not told me anything I didn't know (except perhaps numbers which will change anyway). Some books use language that I do not fully understand especially philosophical ones, and I probably don't get far with them.

One I do like is

The Extended Circle ---Jon Wynne -Tyson    It consists of comments  made over the centuries by various people in alphabetical order, so can be read a page at a time. Useful to have in the loo!!!!

[Raymond Britton]

I recommend "Eternal Treblinka: Our treatment of animals and the Holocaust", by Charles Patterson. At the end of the book there are profiles of animal advocates and the one that inspires me most is of Edgar Kupfer-Koberwitz,

a prisoner at Dachau concentration camp who managed to write an essay entitled "Animal Brothers" in which he explains why he does not eat the other animals. He suffered so much himself and yet he still showed his love of the other creatures by carrying worms from the path where they would be trodden on to a place of safety.