When my book club read The Jungle a few months ago, membership dropped drastically. People said they couldn't handle reading about the nastiness of the meat industry, even though the meat industry in question existed more than 100 years ago. And while there are some passages that might make your guts churn, the book isn't really about the meat industry; it's about the evils of capitalism. Actually, it's basically just a huge advertisement for socialism. I was most disturbed when, in an ironic twist, (spoiler alert!) young Stanislovas Lukoszaite is eaten by rats. Slaughtered cows, what?