La botanica del desiderio. Il mondo visto dalle piante

All those plants care about is what every being cares about on the most basic genetic level: making more copies of itself...Did I choose to plant these potatoes, or did the potato make me do it?...All these plants, which I'd always regarded as the objects of my desire, were also, I realized, subject Leggi tutto

Okay, okay, books by Michael Pollan are clearly a fad right now, but I have bought into it whole-heartedly. He is an amazing, amazing writer: he makes me want to plant a garden, to tour his garden (his bedroom? what?), to only eat organic food, and to find out the story and origin of every morsel of Leggi tutto

I've wanted to read this book ever since it came out, but, so far, I've been pretty deeply disappointed by it. From the jacket copy and reviews I'd read, I'd come to expect a poetic lay-science book about the entwined destinies of plants and humans. Hell, that's what the author's introduction led me Leggi tutto

Reminded me of A History of the World in 6 Glasses with the introduction, except it was even worse. Very long, repetitious, & kept wandering into pseudoscientific philosophy. As well as Scott Brick read this, it was incredibly boring listening to the same points for half an hour, so I quit. Yes, it

This is a marvellous book, which discusses the science, sociology, aesthetics and culture, relating to four plants. Apples Tulips Marijuana Potatoes Because of who I am, the things that interested me most were the tulip and potato sections. With the first, he discusses the notorious obsession surrounding Leggi tutto

Packed with food-related history, trivia and stories, Michael Pollan attempts to explain how four types of plants have had such a large effect on humanity. "We automatically think of domestication as something we do to other species, but it makes just as much sense to think of it as something certain Leggi tutto