The Lives of Animals

As a recent convert to vegetarianism, I was intrigued to see this book cross my desk today: The Lives of Animals by J.M. Coetzee, a winner of the Nobel Prize in literature (2003) and two-time winner of the Booker Prize (1983 and 1999). At first I thought this book was composed of nonfiction essays, but it is actually partly fiction with several responsive essays included from other contributors. According to the back cover quote, “The idea of human cruelty to animals so consumes novelist Elizabeth Costello that she can no longer look another person in the eye: humans, especially meat-eating ones, seem to her to be conspirators in a crime of stupefying magnitude.” Wow! How could your interest not be piqued!? Big thanks to the person who donated this to our LaFarge branch!
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