Vegan Freak: Being Vegan in a Non-Vegan World (Version 2.0: Revised, Expanded & Updated)

By Bob and Jenna Torres
PM Press

Wherever one falls on the meat-eater to vegan continuum, you need to make the Torres duo your truth-speaking, profanity-spewing, tough-loving pals. They will move you closer to ethical veganism. For the already-vegan, Bob and Jenna offer the rationale and the moral support to stay that way. For four years, these wacky Ph.D.s have provided social commentary and intellectual critique to and for vegans through their podcast, blog, online forum and publications. In so doing, they've created the Vegan Freak ethos: a celebration of the way vegans stand out in a society that normalizes brutality and exploitation.

Two years ago my younger brother lent me the first version of Vegan Freak, a colloquial and genuinely caring guide to going vegan—covering everything from basic animal rights theory to getting along with non-vegans to where and how to find vegan products. I'd gone vegan as a teenager, emotionally devastated by exposés of modern industrial agriculture. But with the onset of my adulthood, Whole Foods markets were popping up like dandelions, and no less than Peter Singer had given the seal of approval to "humanely" raised animal products. The ideology of mainstream animal advocates looked hopelessly confused, applauding vegan diets and marketing cage-free eggs in the same breath, and my own veganism needed a shot of re-commitment. Vegan Freak offered that. In its pages I found a consistent, insistent morality and a practical guide to living it.

Now, the new edition appears and, as promised, it's been rewritten from the ground up. A thicker book both in page count and ideas, Version 2.0 reflects the clarity and maturity the authors have developed through years of vegan outreach. It still covers surviving holiday dinners and finding vegan alternatives for the leather fetishist in your life. Bad puns, tangential rants, and non sequitur chapter titles preserve the fun of the original. But new sections address recent trends in the vegan world: environmental veganism, veganism-as-body-image complex (or the Skinny Bitch effect), Oprah's vegan cleanse—all are sliced with a scalpel of abolitionist rationale.

For Bob and Jenna, there's no bad reason to go vegan, per se. Just inadequate reasons. Their goals—to help others go and stay vegan, to build a social movement recognizing animal rights—inform all their advice and criticism. Empathy bleeds through every sentence, but the Torreses treat their audience as responsible adults. They are not going to let us off the hook for failing to check if a soup is made with chicken stock or if our running shoes are all man-made materials. They are not content with vegetarians; cheese addicts get their own special page to bookmark and turn to whenever the craving strikes. Really, Bob and Jenna are sure we can make it through the traumatic dinner party with nothing but iceberg lettuce, and when we think about it, we are, too.

To their credit, the authors do not pretend to know what they don't. They frequently refer readers to other sources. The number of times they recommend Googling vegan product X will get tiresome if you read the book in one sitting. But for anyone attempting to make any kind of change, Vegan Freak is applicable and inspirational. The three-week, cold-tofu approach to personal lifestyle change worked for me when I decided to begin exercising regularly. And their thoughts about "impoverished veganism"—veganism that is only about what we consume and how we spend our money—encourages the already-vegan to think beyond personal choices. Most seriously, I credit my present involvement in any kind of activism, vegan-focused or not, to Bob and Jenna's inspiring, grassroots-y influence.

Review by Charlotte Malerich

The Invention of Monotheist Ethics, Volume I: Exploring the First Book of Samuel

By Hillel I. Millgram
University Press of America, Inc.

But the wicked will be put to silence in darkness; For not by power shall man prevail. Samuel 2:2

The Invention of Monotheist Ethics, Volume I is the first in a two-volume series exploring the Book of Samuel and its significant role in the evolution from a largely pagan society to a monotheistic one. The book is especially geared towards readers who are new to studying the Bible.

Why study the Book of Samuel, and not start at the beginning, in Genesis? First, Millgram argues, it is a highly accessible biblical text. Samuel’s characters are dynamic and deal with matters very similar to our own. Furthermore, states Millgram, the characters are in constant activity, “there is rarely a dull moment.”

Second, the book is diverse in contents, characters, and issues. It is one of the only books in the Bible with several prominent female characters. The very first character we are introduced to is Hannah. At the beginning of the narrative Hannah is childless, and miserable because of it. One night in act of desperation Hannah prays, promising God that if he blesses her with a child she will dedicate the life of the child to him. Hannah gives birth to Samuel shortly after and eventually becomes the mother of six children.

Despite accessibility and diversity, readers may be most interested in Millgram’s most provocative argument; he is convinced that the Book of Samuel was written by a woman. One clue is that women’s roles in the book are not circumstantial (such as being mentioned only as the wife of a male character) but essential to the moral messages of the book. While the historical aspects of the narrative may not be damaged by removing the female characters, the book’s meaning, its moral components, require the presence of the female players.

To give further credit to his argument, Millgram provides details on the daily lives of women in ancient Israel and debunks certain misnomers, such as the belief that most women in ancient Israel were illiterate. The formation of Israel in fact coincided with the adaptation of the alphabet script, and it is not at all unlikely that more women were involved in writing the Bible than believed.

Throughout the book Millgram takes it for granted that the author of Samuel was written by a woman, an approach that is unique and noticeable to those who have previously studied the Bible. Given the manner that Bible stories permeate American society, such an approach can have an enormous positive impact on the psyche of American women, Christian or otherwise.

My favorite story from Volume One was the David and Goliath narrative. Because the story is largely seen as mythical, it is compelling to have the facts of the story articulated, including insights into the consciousness of David and the other main players.

While the book does in fact make the Book of Samuel more accessible to readers, there are long sections dealing with the politics and wars of ancient Israel that are dense and less accessible than other portions of the book. The Invention of Monotheist Ethics is also printed in a format that is academic and unfriendly to the more lay reader.

Unfortunately the volume ends before the introduction of Bathsheba, one of the most memorable women of the Bible. Her story and the rest of King David’s reign are included in Volume Two. However the book is a wonderful introduction to the Bible and a great source for those looking for an unorthodox approach to the book.

Review by Janice Formichella

Sex Appeal: Six Ethical Principles for the 21st Century

By Paul Abramson
Oxford University Press

Sex Appeal flows in an intuitive series of ideas and expresses thoughts that may be obvious, but seem to be seldom practiced. The six logical principles regarding sex for our era outlined in Paul Abramson’s book are not only interesting, but vital to a peaceful coexistence.

If you tried to make a personal guideline for sex using the golden rule, you might get a summation of Abramson’s leading principals: do no harm, celebrate sex, be careful, know yourself, speak up and speak out, and throw no stones. Doing no harm, according to the author, reaches beyond avoiding sexual violence and demands honesty between sexual partners. Abramson encourages readers to be honest with their partners about their history and their expectations. What better way to avoid the spread of STIs and the cliche (but true) image of teenage girls everywhere crying into their pillows, “But he said he loved me.” Every chapter in the book refers back to this idea and seems to spin on an axis around it.

To disarm readers who may assume Abramson is an advocate of having no sex, the author has included an entire chapter encouraging readers to celebrate the act. He argues, though, that the catch to celebrating sex may mean abstaining. For some, that could mean waiting until a certain age, or for others, avoiding it within a certain relationship. The author argues that to really enjoy the amazing experience of intercourse, one has to be mature enough to handle it, which, of course, brings us back to “do no harm,” but also leads into the next idea.

Be careful. When it comes to sex, you don’t even need your mom to tell you this one. Until people are practicing “do no harm” like it’s their job, orgasming comes second to playing safe. So in addition to not hurting others, we don’t hurt ourselves, and the best way to do that is to know ourselves.

“Speak Up and Speak Out” as well as “Throw No Stones” both pull out of the genitals and move into the brain. There’s a lot to understand about sex, Abramson points out, that goes beyond how to do it. These two chapters discuss fairness, protecting oneself and others, ways to avoid or deal with sexual abuse, and harnessing judgment and stigmas around sex—especially as they’re expressed in the US.

While it’s unlikely to happen, the book should probably be part of the curriculum of every high school sex ed class. Occasionally, explanations seem to drag on and some analogies comparing sex to soccer go just a little too far, but the points are valid, clear, and important. Much of what Abramson discusses in this short book may seem blatant to a sexually active adult, but to a young person, the insights (or at least the lessons attached to them) could be huge.

Review by Tatiana Ryckman