A gift from E. after our most recent conversation about vegetarianism. It's full of alarming information, but never alarmist, and thankfully Schlosser wraps up with a concise list of things that need to change. (How to change things? Vote with your wallet.)

Fast Food Nation touches on all the ways fast food restaurants have wormed their ways into our lives. I was already familiar with modern slaughterhouse conditions and the extraordinary unhealthiness of fast food meals, topics that comprise part two of the book. But part one's topics -- the origins of fast food; the anti-union, anti-minimum wage efforts of the restaurant industry; inequities of the franchisor-franchisee relationship—were new to me. Be prepared for outrageous tidbits of information you didn't want to know: Did you learn in history class how General Motors and other automobile industries bought up and tore up early rail lines, single-handedly destroying our light-rail system? Neither did I. Nor did I want to know that soft drink companies license their logos to baby-bottle manufacturers and encourage mothers to fill their infants' bottles with cola. And I thought Coke ads in high school hallways were bad.

Lessons learned: There's no such thing as a free market. Those businesses touted as free-market successes either a) aren't admitting to all the government help they had along the way or b) are in fact free-market failures, eliminating competition instead of triumphing over it with a better product.