89 books like The Meat Racket

In Fast Food Nation, journalist Eric Schlosser traces the growth of fast food across the US and shows how franchises have standardized both agricultural and social life in the process.

As the demand for McDonalds’ fries and hamburgers soared, for example, farmers adapted potato and meat production to strict new specifications. Similarly, fast food franchises reshaped labor practices in the process.

Schlosser’s book was the first to reveal the extent to which fast food changed environmental, social, and health landscapes in the US. And, more important, we see how much fast food—which promises choice—has instead reduced agricultural biodiversity and food choice in the process. 

Marion Nestle is an iconic advocate for a better food system, and all of her 15 books should be read. My book quotes her 2020 Let’s Ask Marion extensively — and her perspective on shareholder returns has particularly informed my work. I refer back to her books and popular newsletter, Food Politics, all the time. But Slow Cooked is the direct line to her brain, and is as wry and personal as it is crucial to understanding the nutritional deficiency built throughout the industrialized food sector. 

This book unfolds a long and brilliant argument drawn from Provenza's decades of academic research and experience with domesticated ruminants—cows, sheep, and goats. Turns out these animals are not dumb. 

In healthy pastures and rangelands Provenza illustrates their ability to select a diet of plants that provide sufficient calories, balanced nutrients, and perhaps most important, a mix of plant-made compounds that underpin normal immunity. Provenza calls this "body wisdom." 

Like ruminants, we too have body wisdom. But, the steady infiltration of ultra-processed foods into the human diet challenges body wisdom with mixed messages. While our brains get high, our cells remain malnourished. This book is a rich and extensive immersion that will transform your thinking. It's eye-opening and mind-expanding in all the best ways.  

Livestock eat a lot of corn and soy, and Matthew David Roth shares the detailed history of how industry fueled that rise over only a few decades. I found the primary documents and deep research Roth cites to be illuminating. I write about how monoculture like commodity soy has had devastating impacts on the soil and waterways across the U.S. This book was key to my research because it’s so important to understand how we got here.

She Said takes readers behind the headlines of how Kantor and Twohey teamed up to break the Harvey Weinstein story. And what a story it is.

Despite being credibly accused of sexual abuse multiple times, Weinstein always managed to evade accountability. With the help of enablers at Miramax (and beyond), Weinstein preyed on women who worked for him or sought work from him for decades.

Until Kantor and Twohey persuaded several victims to go on the record at the same times and their New York Times front page article started a reckoning. This is a meticulous record of investigative reporting that contains many surprises even for those who believe they know the #MeToo story well.

When I had the idea for my book, I had originally wondered about writing full podcast episodes but abandoned that idea as it was so tricky. In Six Stories Matt Wesolowski does exactly that and very successfully.

In the book, elusive podcaster Scott King investigates the murder of a teenager at a deserted outward-bound centre on Scarclaw Fell. As the reader you’re put in the shoes of listeners as King digs deeper into the horrifying setting and the group of people who were staying at the centre and live nearby.

This is the first in the series of six atmospheric novels. They’re chilling, unpredictable, and will keep you up at night. Matt’s writing skills blow me away.

Thriller writer and contemporary ‘queen of crime’ Val McDermid draws deeply on her own years as a tabloid journalist to bring fictional reporter Allie Burns to life during the winter of discontent. This unputdownable tale of a newspaper investigation into matters of life, death, and corruption is so evocative of a 1970s Glasgow newsroom that I could practically smell the fags and taste the whisky. More Allie Burns stories are promised, and I for one can’t wait.

Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels, written by investigative reporter Paul Pringle is another gem of this literary genre.

What began as Pringle’s investigation of a young woman’s overdose, led him to the prominent dean of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC). Once on this trail, he uncovered the corruption at USC, the incompetence of the Pasadena Police Department, and a coverup at the Los Angeles Times.

After reading the first few pages, I was forced to cancel all meetings and plans. Pringle investigative reporting not only helped to uncover the toxic mix of money and power, but the mechanics and drudgery of getting to the bottom of things.

I'd long been fascinated by Nellie Bly, a remarkable woman considered the world's first investigative journalist, who made her name by undertaking feats such as a real life Around the World in Eighty Days.

This novel gives a brief background to her life but focuses on her time incarcerated in an asylum on Blackwell's Island in New York, where she feigned madness to be committed, then reported on the horrific conditions inside on her release. It's told in a spare, but incredibly moving, style and is a wonderful insight into an incredible woman.

When my shoulder are in knots, I can get a massage, or I can reread Fletch.

If you know the book, that will seem weird. It’s not a pretty story and it’s got a pile of seventies misogyny and homophobia that definitely grates. This is not a comfort read. Except it is, for me, because I.M. Fletcher is an artist in the medium of trouble.

This is the story of Fletch’s impossible mountain of problems, personal and professional, and watching him work makes me feel like I’ve seen someone solve a Rubik’s cube underwater with their eyes closed. At the start, a mess. At the end, elegance. Everything is sorted and resolved, no matter how reprehensibly Fletch got it done. My neck tension releases. I can go to bed.