Ranked Top 10 "Best Lit Mags of 2023, 2024" by Chill Subs

Synopsis: Carefully curated stories from our monthly magazine to create a themed short story book about the philosophy and ethics of food. Perfect for classrooms and book clubs, each story is 1,500-7,000 words and comes with five suggested discussion questions. Edition Editor - Nicole Natale

• Meat Is Meat: A starving ship, catches a mermaid and must decide what's for dinner.
• Observation 292: Science discovers plants feel pain like humans, and are sentient.
• The Walnut Tree: A travel tour in Uzbekistan gets sidetracked to wonderful effect.
• Intervention: Bill has decided it's time to confront his brother about his obesity.
• One Hour: A journalist interviews the owner of a strange restaurant and has a meal that causes him to question his life.
• Mayonnaise: The inventor of million dollar "zero fat, zero calorie" food additive discovers her invention is killing her son.
• Exodus: A Jewish family traveling through space to colonize a new world is woken by the AI so they can celebrate Passover.
• Apple Pi: A couple uses coin flips to make decisions in their relationship.
• I Do So, Like Durian: A sheltered teen on a quest through Chinatown finds a new world to explore.
• Reginald's Party: A female interloper crashes an "emotions" wine tasting.

Reviews ★★★★★
“With Science fiction we can explore other galaxies and alien conflicts, but with philosophical fiction we can explore other minds and ethical conflicts. Let this book take you on a Phi-Fi adventure.”
— William Irwin, Ph.D. - Philosophy Professor, King's College

“After Dinner Conversation has taken up the initiative to write themed collections of short stories that fit focused ethics courses – say, a course on bioethics, AI ethics, Tech ethics etc. These collections can offer a spine for such courses or individual stories could be added to a course as illustrative material to stimulate discussion. The stories are lively and engaging and followed by a set of questions to start classroom discussion. Also, outside of educational contexts, the stories will work nicely to stimulate conversation in families, elder hostels, youth clubs, or book groups.”
— Luc Bovens, Ph.D. - Philosophy Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill