The Book of Life, Vol 1: Mind and Body

by Upton Sinclair

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216 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2005

About the author

Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr. was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906). To gather information for the novel, Sinclair spent seven weeks undercover working in the meat packing plants of Chicago. These direct experiences exposed the horrific conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. The Jungle has remained continuously in print since its initial publication. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States. Four years after the initial publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created. Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence." In 1943, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Sinclair also ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Socialist, and was the Democratic Party nominee for Governor of California in 1934, though his highly progressive campaign was defeated.

Reviews

[Edward Weiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read The Jungle (1906) and Oil (1927). The Book of Life (1921) sets forth the author's views on everything he thinks the reader should know about everything -- love, marriage, health, diet, sex, religion and politics. Upton Sinclair died in 1968 at the age of 90. He was a well known socialist and muckraking author; and he is a very good author. This is a fun read. Much better way to understand what the world was like in the first quarter of the 20th century than simply reading a history text.