This page is a work in progress.
After a two-year hiatus where I wasn’t reading much of anything but the relentless news-cycle, something shifted in me since the new year and I finally returned to reading novels, poetry, and non-fiction again. As a relatively new vegan, I have also begun to immerse myself in books and literature on the subject.
By ‘vegan,’ I mean books that explicitly address veganism; violence against, and exploitation of, non-human animals; animal justice and liberation; or any work that engages with the use, treatment, or lived experience of non-human animals in an overtly political and/or ethical way.
With that said, I will also apply a vegan lens to many of the other fiction and non-fiction books I review. Similar to how feminist literary criticism engages, evaluates and deconstructs classic and contemporary literature from the viewpoint of feminism, feminist theory, and/or feminist politics, I am concerned with the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce anthropocentrism, speciesism, and the systemic oppression of non-human animals. I welcome any recommendations in this area, as it is a reading lens that I am completely new to, but very interested in delving into.
For many reasons, there is a dearth of fiction that explicitly tackles or engages with human cruelty towards animals as its main subject matter, so my reading list leans heavily towards non-fiction (exceptions will be indicated in bold parentheses in the list below).
I was delighted to discover a newly-launched Vegan Book Club on Goodreads recently, and have already jotted down a couple of new-to-me novels with vegan themes or characters. If you can recommend any novels, stories, or poetry in this category I would truly love to hear from you.
For a longer list of vegan or animal-related reads, check out my Animal/Animal Studies and Vegan/Animal Rights bookshelves on Goodreads (the ‘Animal’ bookshelf is a catch-all term and is not necessarily vegan in nature–this shelf includes everything from explorations in animal theology to Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox!)
Please come back and visit in the coming weeks and months as I post reviews of the following books and more!
- Animal Liberation: The Definitive Classic Of The Animal Movement by Peter Singer
- Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations
- Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters by Aph Ko and Syl Ko
- Beasts: Beginning of the End by Ana Levley (fiction)
- Beasts Of Burden: Animal And Disability Liberation by Sanaura Taylor
- Critical Animal Studies Reader: An Introduction to an Intersectional Social Justice Approach to Animal Liberation by Anthony J. Nocella II
- Dawn: Book One of the Xenogenesis Series by Octavia E. Butler (fiction)
- Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
- Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals by Gary L. Francione
- Ecofeminism: Feminist Intersections With Other Animals And The Earth by Carol J. Adams & Lori Gruen
- Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee (fiction)
- Experimental Animals (A Rreality Fiction) by Thalia Field (fiction)
- Fat Gay Vegan: Eat, Drink And Live Like You Give A Shit by Sean O’Callaghan
- Fellow Creatures: Our Obligation to the Other Animals by Christine M. Korsgaard
- Neither Man Nor Beast: Feminism And The Defense Of Animals by Carol J. Adams
- Sistah Vegan: Black Female Vegans Speak On Food, Identity, Health, And Society by A. Breeze Harper & Patrice Jones
- Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice by Lisa A Kemmerer & Carol J. Adams
- The Animals by Christian Kiefer (fiction)
- The Animal Manifesto: Six Reasons For Expanding Our Compassion Footprint by Mark Bekoff
- The Sexual Politics Of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory
- The Lives Of Animals by J.M. Coetzee (fiction)
- Veganism In An Oppressive World: A Vegans-Of-Color Community Project
- Vystopia: the Anguish of Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World by Clare Mann (vegan psychologist & communications trainer)