I don't know that reading those books alone would have made me become vegetarian. I recommended the first book to an acquaintance who read it and continued on her carnivorous way. I think it was the shock of reading a book which tied together my love for animals and my lukewarm liking of meat. Then my eyes were opened to the moral aspect of it. I have grown up with pets and am an animal lover.
Animals are sentient beings.
I decided to cut out all meat including fish and shellfish. When I read Diet for a New American and found out about the violence and cruelty of not only the meat industry, but the egg and dairy industry I was horrified. That is when I decided to try being vegan. I later read a book called Vegan, The New Ethics of Eating , which talked a lot about Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and how the cattle industry feeds rendered cattle to cattle. I have always been an animal lover.