Photo: Ben Goldstein/Studio D

By Jonathan Safran Foer
341 pages; Little, Brown

No one has ever accused Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) of being timid. But for a hot young writer to train his sights on a subject as unpalatable as meat production and consumption takes raw nerve. What makes Eating Animals so unusual is vegetarian Foer's empathy for human meat eaters, his willingness to let both factory farmers and food reform activists speak for themselves, and his talent for using humor to sweeten a sour argument.