Tovar Cerulli: The Mindful Carnivore

Description

Author Tovar Cerulli will be at Pegasus Downtown to discuss and sign copies of his new book, The Mindful Carnivore.

Free Admission


ABOUT
The Mindful Carnivore: A Vegetarian’s Hunt for Sustenance (Pegasus Books, February 2012) is Tovar Cerulli’s first book.

An unlikely and provocative journey from vegan to hunter. A meditation on the ethics and ecology of food. An adventurous quest for dinner.

As a boy, Tovar Cerulli spent his summers fishing for trout and hunting bullfrogs. At twenty, moved by the compassionate words of Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh and concerned about the ecological impacts of meat, he became a vegetarian. Soon he went vegan.

A decade later, in the face of declining health, he returned to omnivory. Searching for ethical, ecologically responsible ways to come to terms with his food, he began to contemplate the unthinkable: hunting. Two years later, he took up a deer rifle.

In this deeply personal narrative, Cerulli explores our most elemental relationship with nature: food. From a fateful encounter with a brook trout to a rekindled relationship with the only hunter in his family, he traces the evolution of his dietary philosophy. Contemplating vegetable gardens, farm fields, and deer woods with intellectual and emotional candor, he stalks both food and meaning.

Cerulli brings nuance to conversations often dominated by black-and-white thinking. He sets contemporary debates in context by looking back over centuries of history and delving into our changing natural and cultural landscapes. In place of moral certainties, he offers questions.

Can hunters and vegetarians be motivated by similar values and instincts? In this time of intensifying concern over ecological degradation and animal welfare, how do we make peace with the fact that, even in growing organic vegetables, life is sustained by death?

At once compassionate and probing, The Mindful Carnivore invites us to reconsider what it means to eat.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tovar has written on hunting, forestry, wildlife, and conservation for Outdoor America, Northern Woodlands, and Massachusetts Wildlife, among others.

He received his B.A. from Eugene Lang College of the New School for Social Research. In 2009, he was awarded a Graduate School Fellowship by the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where he studies communication. His M.A. thesis, “Meat and Meanings: Adult-Onset Hunters’ Cultural Discourses of the Hunt,” was completed in 2011. He is currently enrolled at UMass as a Ph.D. student and continues to focus his research on food, hunting, and human relationships with the natural world.

He lives in Vermont with his wife Catherine, their affectionate Labrador retriever, Kaia, and an eclectic mix of cookbooks.

REVIEWS

"A touching and thought-provoking exploration of not only what we eat but how we eat it."
—Publishers Weekly

"Entertaining and erudite. Cerulli’s refreshingly evenhanded tone allows readers to judge the author’s argument on the merits of his literary and personal evidence."
—Kirkus Reviews

"Provides a genuine and thorough map to a guiding principle: Regardless of your dietary choices or preferences, be aware of where your food comes from and do your best to do as little damage as possible."
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Speaks eloquently to the difference between a deer on the hoof and a plastic-wrapped package of meat."
—Library Journa

More Info

Link

http://www.pegasusbookstore.com

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510.649.1320

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