Jonathan Safran Foer

Eating Animals

Like many young Americans, Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between enthusiastic carnivore and occasional vegetarian. As he became a husband, and then a father, the moral dimensions of eating became increasingly important to him. Faced with the prospect of being unable to explain why we eat some animals and not others, Foer set out to explore the origins of many eating traditions and the fictions involved with creating them. The resulting book, Eating Animals, is part memoir and part investigative report. In the words of the Los Angeles Times, it places Jonathan Safran Foer "at the table with our greatest philosophers." The stories of how the book came to be, and the shocking information that he learned, make for eye-opening conversation.

Reading Between the Lines with Jonathan Safran Foer

Combining several formats - book reading, audience interaction, and literary investigation - Jonathan delights audiences with an insightful, behind the scenes analysis of his bestselling novels.

Literary Virtuoso

Author of the International Bestseller Everything Is Illuminated, which was published when he was only 25, Jonathan Safran Foer has emerged as one of the most exciting writers of this generation. Everything Is Illuminated was hailed as the "Debut of the decade," and translated into 35 languages. The novel won numerous awards, including the Guardian First Book Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Prize. It was also made into a film, with Elijah Wood playing Mr. Foer. His second novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close also became an International Bestseller, and an Oscar-Nominated Film. It received the "Literature for Life Award," the Victoria and Albert Museum Award, and the Prix des libraries du Quebec, and was shortlisted for the International IMPAC prize. Named one of Rolling Stone’s “People of the Year” and Esquire’s “Best and Brightest,” Jonathan Safran Foer has had stories published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and Conjunctions. He is the editor of a bestselling anthology of writing inspired by the bird boxes of Joseph Cornell, A Convergence of Birds. His libretto “Seven Attempted Escapes from Silence” was performed by the Berlin State Opera House in September 2005.

A Modern Muckraker

Over the course of 2006, Mr. Foer visited animal farms across the country – from small, family-run organic farms, to factory farms that produce more waste than Los Angeles – in an effort to get at the most fundamental question about food, which is not “Can this be eaten?” but “Should this be eaten?” He documented his road adventure and the ecological crisis he observed in a nonfiction book entitled, Eating Animals.