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The Botany of Desire
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-eye View of the World | Michael Pollan
An Idaho farmer cultivates Russet Burbank potatoes so that a customer at a McDonald's half a world away can enjoy a long, golden French fry. A gardener plants tulip bulbs in the fall and, come spring, has a riotous patch of color to admire. Two straightforward examples of how humans act on nature to get what we want. Or are they? What if those potatoes and tulips have evolved to gratify certain human desires so that humans will help them multiply? What if, in other words, these plants are using us just as we use them? Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and in the process spreads the flowers' genes far and wide. What Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates in The Botany of Desire is that people and domesticated plant species have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship, a relationship that is just as common and essential to the way nature works. In this utterly original narrative that blends history, memoir, and the best science writing, Pollan tells the story of four domesticated species-the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato-from the point of view of the plants. All four species are deeply woven into the fabric of our everyday lives, and Pollan illustrates how each has evolved a survival strategy based on satisfying one of humankind's most basic desires. The apple gratifies our taste for sweetness; the tulip attracts us with its beauty; marijuana offers intoxication; and the genetically modified potato gives us a sense of control over nature. And just as we've benefited from these plants, the plants, in the grand coevolutionary scheme that Pollan so brilliantly evokes, have done remarkably well by us. Take the apple, for example. In nineteenth-century America, frontier dwellers far from the trading posts of the East lacked a source of sweetness in their diet-and sugar with which to make alcohol. So when a man named John Chapman (a.k.a. Johnny Appleseed) floated down the Ohio River with bushels of apple seeds in his canoe, the settlers seized on the opportunity to grow the fruit on their new land. The pioneers' desire for sweetness was satisfied-and the apple was given a whole new continent on which to blossom. So who is really domesticating whom? Weaving fascinating anecdote and accessible science in gorgeous prose, Pollan takes the reader on an absorbing journey through the landscape of botany and desire. It is a journey that will change the way we think about our place in nature. In 1637, one Dutchman paid as much for a single tulip bulb as the going price of a town house in Amsterdam. Three & a half centuries later, Amsterdam is once again the mecca for people who care passionately about one particular plant-though this time the obsession revolves around the intoxicating effects of marijuana rather than the visual beauty of the tulip. How could flowers, of all things, become such objects of desire that they drive men to financial ruin? In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan argues that the answer lies at the heart of the intimately reciprocal relationship between people & plants. In telling the stories of four familiar plant species that are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives, Pollan illustrates how they evolved to satisfy humankind's most basic yearnings- & by doing so made themselves indispensable. For, just as we've benefited from these plants, the plants, in the grand co-evolutionary scheme that Pollan evokes so brilliantly, have done well by us. The sweetness of apples, for example, induced the early Americans to spread the species, giving the tree a whole new continent in which to blossom. So who is really domesticating whom? Weaving fascinating anecdotes & accessible science into gorgeous prose, Pollan takes us on an absorbing journey that will change the way we think about our place in nature.
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BC_Dittemore
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Pickpick

This is the second Michael Pollan book I‘ve listened to this year, and once again it did not disappoint. He has a keen ability of making his subject accessible to the layperson. In The Botany of Desire his main conceit is to present the reader/listener with a view of humanity from the perspective of 4 different plants: apples, tulips, cannabis, and the potato. I‘m not sure if he really stays true to his thesis, but the plethora of info is great.

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PaperbackPirate
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Pickpick

Today‘s prompt for #BoundTogetherJune is Fruit on the cover.
Apples, potatoes, marijuana, and tulips are the stars of this collection of connected essays, which leave you wondering, who‘s in control? The plants or us? The writing style makes the science accessible to the average Nicole.
🍎🥔🌿🌷🍏
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
@OriginalCyn620
#FruitOnTheCover

OriginalCyn620 👍🏻📚🍎 4y
SamAnne Loved that book. Have looked at apples the same. 4y
PaperbackPirate @SamAnne Or Johnny Appleseed!! 😂😬 4y
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LibLib
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Pickpick

This was such a fascinating book! Michael Pollan dissects the relationship between plants and people and frames it in a way that plants are using us instead of us using them. He focuses on four plants and how we view them: Apples for sweetness, Marajuana for intoxication, Potatoes for control and Tulips for beauty. I really enjoyed learning about the history of each of these plants and how they shaped our society. #recommend #bookonplants

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WanderingBookaneer
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Pickpick

Fascinating look at apple trees, potatoes, cannabis, and tulips. Pollan's theory is that as part of their survival strategy, these species use humans to continue to evolve and thrive on Earth. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#KindleDailyDeal (US)

https://www.amazon.com/Botany-Desire-Plants-Eye-View-World-ebook/dp/B000FC1H14/r...

Craftylikefox One of my favorites! My first read from Michael Pollan while I was going to school for Horticulture! 5y
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AWahle
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Started this on the drive home tonight. Very disappointed that Mr. Pollan began by incorrectly saying the bee working in his garden was a “he.” “A bumblebee would probably would probably also regard himself as a subject in the garden and the bloom he‘s plundering for its drop of nectar as an object. But we know this is just a failure of his imagination.” Sigh. My 7 year old neighbor would be happy to explain that the worker bees are all female.

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SkeletonKey
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Pickpick

I forgot to take a snap of this book again before returning it so here, have a mushroom photo that I had on my phone listening to the audiobook.

Botany of Desire was excellent, so much hidden history and detailed evolutions of such simple plants. It made me look at everything around here and wonder about all the things that we don‘t know have happened.

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SkeletonKey
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Next audiobook: The Botany of Desire.

I‘ve never had a green thumb despite wishing the opposite. Maybe this will help??

#plants

Caterina My dad got this book on a Kindle deal recently - it sounds really interesting! 6y
MinDea I read this a while back. I enjoyed it! Very interesting. 6y
SkeletonKey @Caterina - So far so good! 6y
See All 6 Comments
SkeletonKey @MinDea - I‘m liking it! Such an interesting idea. 6y
night_shift Pollan is great. I really enjoyed Omnivore's Dilemma. Haven't read this one yet. 6y
SkeletonKey @UnidragonFrag - I enjoyed that one too. 6y
36 likes6 comments
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everlocalwest
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Pickpick

I have wanted to go apple picking and to try different varietals of apple since reading this and I'm finally going next weekend! So excited! Also, obviously loved this book and love Pollan. #riotgrams #apples

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BookishMarginalia
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The #audiobook @WanderingBookaneer and I are enjoying during our commutes. 👍🏼👏🏼

BethFishReads This is a good one. 7y
Mc_cart_ny His name is Pollan....like Pollen? 😅 7y
thegirlwiththebookishcandle I like listening to him talk 7y
135 likes5 stack adds3 comments
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WanderingBookaneer
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Our new #CommuteRead !

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DoubleLane
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In biology class today my teacher printed different sections of the book for us to chose and read. I fell in love with the writing but I could definitely see how others would find it bland. My entire section was about the Tulip mania in Holland back in the 1600s and how it correlates to a humans natural obsession with beauty.

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BeckyBelt
Mehso-so

This was decent. It kind of reminded me of John McPhee in that it's readable non-fiction that made me interested in a topic that would not normally get my attention (my friend shoved this book into my hand as I was leaving his apartment). I didn't love it but I'm going to go find some McPhee to read because of it so it all worked out.

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GoneFishing

Yes, forgetting can be a curse, especially as we age. But forgetting is also one of the more important things healthy brains do, almost as important as remembering. Think how quickly the sheer volume and multiplicity of sensory information we receive every waking minute would overwhelm our consciousness if we couldn‘t quickly forget a great deal more of it than we remember.

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eleni37

"What existential difference is there between the human being's role in this (or any) garden and the bumblebee's?"