Book review: Fast Food Nation, By Eric Schlosser

Over that last few weeks I have been reading Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser. Wow, what an eye opening book. This was essentially one man’s story of what he learned over a two-year period about an industry that is one of the most influential in the world, but draws little attention to its economic impact on the world. If Schlosser had simply spewed facts and stats at the readers he would have lost me, as it would have lacked substance, and I would have been bored. By telling the stories through his eyes and the eyes of the people he met, he makes the ideas discussed more genuine and more compelling.

I would recommend it because it is one of the few books that nearly anyone can relate to and can quickly form an opinion of. The way that the book is laid out, by providing the history of the industry, the facts and stats about the industry and tying it all back to personal stories of those that live and work in the industry is very powerful. Had any one of these elements been left out it would not have been as thought provoking and would not have allowed people to relate to the concepts.

In all, I highly recommend this book. Even more so, I recommend that you get the audio book of it. I started with the hard copy of the book, but wasn’t getting far so I got the audio book version from Audible.com and it was a tremendous difference. This was because person reading added in the emotion needed to make the book read/listen like a movie.