The Mindful Carnivore lifts off today.
In reality, it has been landing on shelves for a couple weeks already. But today it’s official. The book is out, in hardcover and all flavors of eBook.
In the Acknowledgments section of the book, I thank many people, including you:
. . . all the readers of my blog, for commenting on my posts and engaging each other in spirited and civil debate, for opening my eyes to new perspectives and challenging me to reconsider my own.
I mean that. This book would not have happened without you. Or, if it happened, it would have been a lesser creation. I am in your debt.
And—because I believe in this book and the questions it raises—I’m willing to add to that debt by asking two favors.
- First, if you’re inclined to buy the book, please consider doing it in the next few days. I’m told that moving the sales needle in the first week really matters. (If you can make it to one of my upcoming book events here in New England, please consider buying a copy there, to support the independent bookstores hosting me.)
- Second, please help spread the word. Over coffee or over a meal, at a meeting or online, please mention the book to a few friends—or a few hundred. Word-of-mouth is powerful.
Many thanks.
I’ll keep you posted on the conversations that get sparked as the book spreads its wings. I look forward to bringing those conversations right back here.
© 2012 Tovar Cerulli
We should all be thanking you, Tovar. Your book is on its way to me as I type this, and I can’t wait to, ahem, sink my teeth into it.
Thanks, Christine! I hope you thoroughly enjoy the chew, er, read. 😉
Good luck on your new book. I am looking forward to reading it.
Thanks, Steve!
Congratulations! The book is really connecting with people and all of your success is well-deserved.
Thanks, Lauren! That connecting is a great gift.
Tovar, I ordered your book from Amazon on the 14th. I may be at the Milford, NH book event on the March 24th. It depends on if I’m aproved for an overtime shift at work or not. Time and a half is more than I can resist, but I do wish you the best of luck.
Thanks, Keith! I hope you get that shift. If not, though, I look forward to seeing you; the book event will be a consolation prize.
Vegan-turned-hunter, eh? If you’ll forgive the lengthy comment, i’m a former vegetarian-raising-a-hunter, so we have some common ideas. When I returned to Vermont after a long absence, I was saddened by the obvious decline in hunting…imho, it’s important for meat-eaters to really understand and appreciate where their food comes from. My son joined 4-H and began hunting at age 8. Hunting for food is a noble tradition and serves an important function as far as managing animal populationsbut I’m sure i’m preaching to the choir. Good luck with the book and I look forward to reading it.
Thanks for your comment, Felicity. (No worries about length. When a post gets serious conversation going, individual comments sometimes run into the hundreds of words!)
Very interesting to hear about your return to Vermont, your return to omnivory, and your son’s interest in hunting. I hope to meet you before long, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the book…
Great book Tovar. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.
I’m nearly finished with the book and am thoroughly enjoying it. Today my son and I attended the first day of Hunter Education. . I totally agree with the reasoned approach to taking control and responsibility for what we eat and I think I am prepared to hunt this fall. But it is still a tough battle in my mind and it is still such a culture shock to enter the world of hunting. What was particularly hard today was hearing the instructor tell of an experience on one of Ted Turner’s ranches. Apparently there were very few deer in the area and Turner wanted to know why. The finger was pointed at (probably rightly) mountain lions. The following season his people “harvested” a large number (in the teens I think) of mountain lions and now the deer population is way up. This just reminds me of gassing the groundhogs to save the arugula. It’s all much more complex than we like to think. Anyway, thanks again.
Thanks, Rob! So glad you’ve been enjoying the read. Yes, entering the world of hunting can definitely feel like culture shock.
About that story from Turner’s ranch, what do you think the instructor’s intended take-home message was?
He presented it as a triumph of wildlife management and boon to deer production. I very much see it as analogous to control of depredation on an agricultural crop. He was very proud. And I’m not saying that it was necessarily the wrong move, but it further dispels the notion of wildlife not influenced by the actions of humans. It requires our deep looking to reach a little further yet.
Finished the book last night, I really enjoyed it and it is sparking lots of conversation with friends. Cheers.
Oh and my son, who took the class with me, remembers the number of lions killed was 23 in one month. And I should point out that I really respect Turners choice to use a portion of his money for land conservation. In the overall scheme of things I think he is doing good work.
Interesting, Rob. I have mixed feelings about that kind of wildlife management. As you say, it basically treats cougars as pests/vermin and deer as a crop to be produced. In situations like that, hunters certainly can’t claim that deer hunting is necessary from a management/habitat perspective. I’d be curious to know what you found “particularly hard” about hearing that story.
I’m delighted to hear how much you enjoyed the book, and to know that it is sparking conversations with others!
Part of the ‘crack in the door’ that allowed me to consider hunting was the fact that we find ourselves in a drastically altered landscape with greatly reduced native predators and herbivore populations that have swelled to the point of putting ecosystems at risk. The story I learned in NJ as a Natural Resource Management student was that hunting is a good and necessary way to control deer populations after the extirpation of large predators. That made sense. I can deal with that. But the situation in the west is a little different. I thought wholesale targeting of wolves and lions was a thing of the past – a lessons learned tale that was shaping wildlife management consider whole ecosystems rather than serving an extractive industry. I know it is still quite a battle – here in NM as well as other parts of the west, the re-introduction of wolves has met with fierce opposition. Killing off predators to unbalance deer and elk populations in order to increase the need for hunting doesn’t make sense. Anyway, killing the competion certainly isn’t very ‘sporting’. If anyone has a different take, lay it on me.
Well put, Rob.