Read Books. Change the World.

As we learn about animal cruelty and exploitation and are moved by their suffering, we make decisions to boycott as consumers products and services made with their secretions or from their bodies. We become vegetarians or better still vegans.

Often this process of vegan self-education is prompted by exposure to printed publications and increasingly online materials produced by the animal rights movement and the media’s coverage of the issues. Undercover footage, videos, and documentaries exposing animal abuse are distressing but effective ways to learn.

As we discover how animals are abused and how their suffering is all around us, we start to look for it and begin to see it when it was hitherto hidden from view. We feel we need to learn more and are hungry for information. Learning is, of course, a continual process, and we never stop educating ourselves. But there’s also a point when we think we know it all. There’s nothing more to learn. And there’s even a further place when we’re overwhelmed and tell people not to show us animal cruelty reports. This is not the same as someone who isn’t a vegan and doesn’t know and doesn’t want to be told.

We owe it to animals to keep learning and informing others until every cage is empty and every slaughterhouse is closed. Of course, we must be careful about becoming overwhelmed and so emotionally distressed that we’re no longer effective campaigners. We must pace ourselves and learn how to protect our emotional and mental well-being. For example, I used to be able to watch videos and films exposing animal cruelty. But now I avoid them as I find them too upsetting to watch.

So, as we learn about animal rights and change what we put into our stomachs, we must also change what we feed our minds. Reading books is my preferred way to learn and become a more effective animal rights activist.

This is why I’m publishing on Substack a series of interviews with authors of books about social justice, animal rights, and related issues. Authors have important things to say. An interview allows an author to talk informally about themselves, their work, and what motivates them.

There are now ten interviews with authors published on my Substack page. Their expertise ranges from a scientific critique of animal research to a biography of the author of the novel Black Beauty, from ethical veganism to greyhound rescue. With author interviews being prepared for publication, please visit my Substack page to read the first ten.

Read books. Change the world.