Annotated Reading List

1.) Moore, Christopher. Fool. New York City: HarperCollins, 2009. Print. Fool is a hilarious satire of King Lear by Shakespeare. It takes place in the same setting but is told this time by the king's fool, a wee man who has a clever joke for everything and a manner most charming in its vulgarity. After Lear banishes one of his daughters, the fool, known as pocket, endeavers to retrieve her and enters a series of outrageous adventures. He is also reminiscent of his childhood, and tells the sweet, humorous tale of his old best friend, a nun, who suprisingly helps twist the ending!

2.) Moore, Christopher. Lamb. New York City: HarperCollins, 2002. Print. Lamb is the side-splitting never-before-told story of Jesus Christ's childhood as told by his best friend Biff, who's pretty pissed about the Bible having left him out. After being brought back to life by an angel, Biff tells the tale of how he tagged along with Jesus, whose name was Joshua before translated, as he embarked to discover just how to be the Messiah. They first end up with a wizard man and his many asain hooker women only to have to slay a demon and then travel on to become Buddhists and learn kung fu. With the other monks, they travel a treacherous icy path and meet an adorable but kina scary creature of pure innocence. Throughout their countless adventures, Jesus learns all he is to preach later with the help of John, and Biff...well, Biff learns sarcasm.

3.) Moore, Christopher. Coyote Blue. New York City: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Print. Coyote Blue is the crazed tale of a salesman with an unexpected past. After growing up a Crowe Indian on their Indian Reservation, Samson Hunts Alone was forced to flee upon partially-accidently killing a cop. He became a salesman at the bet of an experienced one, and changes his name to Samuel Hunter. Now, though, his past seems to be catching up; Coyote Blue, a shape-shifting trickster Indian, appears out of nowhere to ruin his life. Coincidently at the exact same time a beautiful woman named Calliope arrives, making Samuel utterly lovestruck. Yet Samuel's life is falling to pieces, and the battle to stitch them back together ensues.

4.) Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. Print. Brave New World is a frightening look into a very possible future, filled with new normalcies of brainwashing, drugs and sex. The novel delves into a society deeming themselves a practical utopia, with its citizens created each to be a member of a specific group to perform specific tasks that enable the perfection of functionality in their society. However, there are problems; with the absence of morality, is their society suffering? And with the constant presence of 'happiness', especially that induced by 'soma', does true happiness exist? Onto the stage appears a 'savage', who belongs to an uncivilized world, and he argues their way of functioning is terribly wrong.

5.) Moore, Christopher. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Print. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove is a story of, you guessed it, a giant lizard monster arriving into the area of a town called Pine Cove. The town psychiatrist, after feeling guilty for one of her patients committing suicide, replaces all the her pateints' antidepressants to placebos, in hopes of truly bettering them with therapy. In turn, the local bar's business grows greatly, and a bluesman is brought in to play guitar. Unfortunately, it is his guitar playing that seems to have attracted from the sea this giant lizard with a hunger for humans and an ability to morph into a trailor. The town's "crazy lady" falls in love with the lizard, naming him Steve, but Steve still can't be too friendly with the rest of the town, and must be gotten rid of before everyone's been eaten.


6.) Eisnitz, Gail A. Slaughterhouse: the Shocking Story of Greed, Neglect, and Inhumane Treatment inside the U.S. Meat Industry. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1997. Print. Slaughterhouse is the nonfiction collaboration of interviews Gail Eisnitz has done with workers at the biggest slaughterhouses in the country. The book reveals the most shocking and disturbingly unimagineable scenes that occur constantly in every slaughterhouse. Not only is it true that an animal properly going through a production line is most rare, and many are skinned alive and/or boiled alive, but the conditions alone of a slaughterhouse, the prevalent roaches, maggots, feces and urine, are enough to make any reader feel like projectile vomiting their lunch. Slaughterhouse, too, tackles the fact that meat-packing is the most dangerous industry and job in America, and its effects on workers is devastating. Killing an animal, or at least trying to, every three seconds all day long is both psychologically damaging and horribly dangerous. This book is a gauranteed change to vegetarianism to anyone I would hope.