Top 16 Books About Vegetarianism Updated 04 /2024

It has been a common theme in Western literature for a long time. Vegetarianism has also been important in many different types of literature. This is because vegetarianism, animal rights, health, the meat industry, and climate change all have ties to literature. Platonic ideals, slaughterhouse hell, leaf-eating kooks, utopian, dystopian, apocalyptic, and literary fiction are all examples of how the diet can complicate character development in fiction. For example, in literary fiction, the diet can add heartbreaking arrogance, for example, or misanthropic compassion to a character.

God says in Genesis: "I have given you every seed-bearing plant and every tree that has fruit that can be used to make food." They will be yours to eat. Plums, berries, almonds, but not giraffes! That's how the protagonist/antagonist of my novel Rabbits for Food might have said it, but she's a rationalist, so she wouldn't have said it that way. We have the same flat-edged teeth as the great apes thanks to evolution, and our two small fangs are meant to crack walnuts.

But Bunny isn't living a healthy lifestyle because he's a vegetarian. It doesn't bother her that her sister wears what Bunny calls "shoes made from tree bark." She smokes, has never been to the gym, and doesn't like people like that. It hurts Bunny to eat meat because she cares a lot about animals and the environment. She doesn't want to eat it. Her honesty is the kind that makes people uncomfortable. She is acerbic, caustic, judgmental, and even funny at the same time. But there's no moral superiority here. Instead, she's in a deep clinical depression, and she's not happy. Bunny isn't easy to like. As a child, Bunny lived on peanut butter sandwiches and canned fruit. In the second part, the story takes place in the mental hospital, where meat is the main dish at every meal.

Below is a list of 10 books about vegetarians that are very good. I could have, by the way, included Han Kang's great novel The Vegetarian, but it's so well-known that I thought it was unnecessary.

Elizabeth Costello by JM Coetzee

Coetzee's main character is a brilliant writer, a well-known literary figure, a complicated woman, and a vegetarian. The book is made up of formal lectures, some of which are about animal rights. A person who has a lot of specific things on her mind doesn't always have room for feelings that go outside of that area. Elizabeth makes a comparison between the treatment of cattle and Nazi atrocities at one of her talks. This doesn't go over well with the audience, or with her son, who tells her to stop making a show of herself.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

When people think of Creature, Mary Shelley's book about a monster that kills, they think of Boris Karloff as the killer. Even though Dr. Frankenstein changed the natural order, the Creature was "born" innocent. He was nice. He didn't eat meat. "My food is not that of man. I do not kill the lamb and the kid to satisfy my hunger." All he wanted was love and friendship. His natural sweetness was ruined by the cruelty and rejection he received from people. This turned him into the monster. After he killed a lot of people, people don't talk about what he ate. Is it safe to say that his menu has changed?

Ethical Vegetarianism edited by Kerry S Walters and Lisa Portmess

From Pythagoras to Peter Singer, the title says it all. Even if you're a meat-eater, the wide range of analytical, scientific, and religious arguments make this collection worth reading. It's also great for students to use in debates.

Collected Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Singer didn't eat meat after living near an abattoir for a very short time. People in these stories, which are set in both old-world Poland and mid-century New York, always do what they're told. A few words about their favorite restaurants and their shopping habits don't even make the cut. They buy mushrooms, beets and potatoes at the markets without comment. But Singer doesn't always let us get away with it. The book The Slaughterer, for example, shows how inhumane butchering is on a daily basis. Neither the details nor the entrails are spared in the process. If you're sensitive, this job isn't for you. It pushes you to the point where you're on the edge.

Charlotte’s Web by EB White

She doesn't do things the same way that other spiders do. She doesn't make webs to catch flies for food like other spiders. She weaves the words "Some Pig" into her web. If Charlotte's humanitarian mission to save Wilbur the pig from being slaughtered is true, it means that pigs who aren't saved by literate spiders are going to become pork chops and bacon.

Animals: a Novel by Don LePan

All the animals have been eaten by humans, but we still like meat. This is a satirical landscape set in the future. Cannibalism is the best option. People say that if we ate animals because we were better than them, why not eat people who are physically and mentally ill? Besides, why not make him your pet?

A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor

Taylor's book is about a person who has to choose between life and love, but that's not the whole story. The two first meet when they were teenagers. In Vesey's aunt, Harriet's mother is very close to. Both families are vegetarians to the core. Harriet and Vesey take his young cousins out to lunch, where he gets them to eat a chop. It's a hilarious and revealing scene. Doubling down on the corruption, he tells them to lie to their mother about it, but they don't want to. However, they understand that he makes a big difference between lying, omitting, and evading. The only thing they need to say is that macaroni and cheese was on the food list.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

This book is about immigrants working in a slaughterhouse in Chicago. It shows how the workers are exploited and how disgusted the meat processing industry is, which led to the American Clean Food and Drug Act. If this was the case, then no more sausages would have human fingers inside of them. When the book was written, there was also a rise in vegetarianism.

We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast by Jonathan Safran Foer

Foer asks those of us who don't believe that climate change is a natural event as irreversible as the extinction of dinosaurs: How can we say we care about the environment but not give up our meat? Industrial farming is not only cruel to the animals, but it also causes a lot of deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions. The answer isn't simple.

The Time Machine by HG Wells

They are gentle and fun-loving, and they seem to be the only humans left on a utopian Earth. They eat a lot of delicious fruit, which they love to share. Under ground, there is another group. For fun, the Morlocks kill animals. For food, they eat the Eloi who ate a lot of fruit.

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