Join me, Toby Young, on Wednesday the 18th of February for another installment in the Spectator's Speaker series.

I'll be joined by the star of Lord of the Rings and Indiana Jones, John Reese Davis.

We'll be covering his fascinating childhood in Tanzania, the secrets behind his lasting success,

and what he sees as the challenges facing Western civilization.

Join us in the library at Old Queen Street Cafe at 7pm on Wednesday, the 18th of February.

Book your tickets at spectator.com forward slash book now.

Hello and welcome to Spectator's Book Club podcast.

I'm Sam Leith, the literary edge of The Spectator,

and I'm very pleased to be joined this week by Eric Schlosser.

The American journalist is author of Fast Food Nation,

The Dark Side of the All-American Meal,

which attentive listeners will know isn't a brand new book. It in fact came out as long as 25 years ago, I'm astonished to hear,

and it's now being reissued in Penguin Classics, Eric. Welcome.

Thank you.

Now, this book has become a kind of very defining document in our understanding of American modernity and the fast food industry and all the things you talk about in it.

But was it, I mean, I was talking to somebody who I think knew you first time around who said, you know what?

He sat out to write a slightly different book and it turned into this.

I don't know whether that's

right or not. For better or for worse, this is really what I set out to write. I did a trial run

of it. It was a very long two-part investigation for Rolling Stone, and I spent about a year on

that, and the book was an expansion of, you know, really long, I can't remember how long, maybe,

20,000 word, 30,000 word, magazine, two articles.

...