Righteous Porkchop
By Nicolette Hahn Niman
336 pages; Collins Living

A modern industrial riddle: Where is a "nutrient" a pollutant, a "lagoon" a pool of animal waste, the air you breathe a miasma of toxic vapors? Answer: at a factory farm, where hogs, chickens, cattle, and even fish live the short, unhappy lives that environmental lawyer, activist, and rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman depicts, with uncommon restraint, in Righteous Porkchop. This necessary book—part memoir, part exposé—may briefly put you off your feed, but its reasoned case for healthy and humane farming practices has the sweet savor of truth.