Books & Botanicals
People get crazy about their plants. People also get crazy about books. Let’s put those together and see what kind of books are available for you plant lovers out there. As a known plant murderer, I will just stick to the books so no innocent plant gets hurt!
The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth
by Zoë Schlanger
The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024 • TIME’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2024 • New York Magazine’s 10 Best Books of the Year • Washington Post’s 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction of 2024 • Smithsonian’s 10 Best Science Books of the Year • A Best Book of the Year: Boston Globe, Scientific American,New York Public Library, Christian Science Monitor, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly • An Amazon Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
Plants have to do a lot of stuff to be plantish, and we’ve all seen some of the adaptations (Venus fly traps, pitcher plants) that occur in nature. Recent science shows that plants have the ability to communicate. Really! They can hear sounds, store useful memories in their vines, flowers, or leaves for future planty relatives, and trick animals into just leaving them alone.
This book is so engaging as it shows readers the awe-inspiring drama that goes on under our feet and over our heads. What can we learn about humanity from the living things that constantly adapt, accommodate, survive, and thrive? We definitely need plants to live, but do plants need us at all? You’ll love this glimpse into some of the less celebrated residents of our big blue marble!
“A masterpiece of science writing.” –Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass
“Mesmerizing, world-expanding, and achingly beautiful.” –Ed Yong, author of An Immense World
“Rich, vital, and full of surprises. Read it!” –Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction
Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities
by Briony Morrow-Cribbs - Amy Stewart - Jonathon Rosen
This unbelievably cool book contains info on more than 200 of Mother Nature’s deadliest, scariest, and most appalling creations. You’ll learn about a tree that sheds poison daggers, a shrub that causes paralysis, a different shrub that explodes, and a weed that, yes, killed Abraham Lincoln’s mom. Nature, man.
The illustrations are ghastly and terrifying; the drawings are miles beyond menacing. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will alarm and enlighten even the most intrepid lovers of nature. You have never read a book like this, and you will never think about botany the same way!
“From bucolic woodland streams choked by invasive purple loosestrife to languid southern fields overrun by kudzu, some plants are just more trouble than they’re worth. Culling legend and citing science, Stewart’s fact-filled, A–Z compendium of nature’s worst offenders offers practical and tantalizing composite views of toxic, irritating, prickly, and all-around ill-mannered plants.” - Carol Haggas
The Fair Botanists: Could One Rare Plant Hold the Key to a Thousand Riches?
by Sara Sheridan
Edinburgh is full of excitement about an impending visit from King George IV. The residents are also celebrating the city’s newly installed Botanic Garden. The Agave Americana plants only flowers once every few decades, and all of the signs say that time is approaching.
Elizabeth, a talented artist who lives nearby, has offered her services to draw the flower for posterity. She meets a mysterious young woman, Belle Brodie, who loves plants and lucrative business of perfume development.
Belle wants to keep her real identity secret. Her real motive for accessing the garden is also a secret from Elizabeth and everyone else. But secrets don’t last long in Edinburgh, and consequences are unleashed that affect a lot of people, not just Belle!
'Lush, seductive' – Daily Mail
'Completely enchanting'—Scotsman
'A beautiful tale of scandal and intrigue'—Susan Stokes-Chapman, author of Pandora
Houseplants and Their F*cked-Up Thoughts: P.S., They Hate You
by Carlyle Christoff - Elisabeth Saake
Readers are in for a treat when they delve into this book! If you’ve ever felt, well…like your house plants do not appreciate you at all? And they are silently judging you as a human and a plant person? Oh, they totally are!
You are not roommates. You are not happily cohabitating. The plant is not happy. It wants water. It also might want your husband!
This funny little book about plants is a must-read for any botany fan with a sense of humor.
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World
by Michael Pollan
Modern Amsterdam is all about another plant now, but in 1637, a Dutchman purchased a single tulip bulb for the going price of a town house at the time. How can flowers drive people to obsession and financial ruin?
Author Michael Pollan says that the answer lies in the intimate relationships we form with our plants and shares the stories of four familiar plant species that are part of the fabric of humanity.
There are four plants that evolved to meet the needs of humans, and now we would consider them indispensable. This excellent read will change the way you see man’s place in the natural cycles of Earth.
“This book is as crisp as an October apple, as juicy as an August tomato, as long-awaited as the first flower of spring. Michael Pollan has conceived a new and powerful understanding of who we are, and how we stand in relation to everything else—and the stories he tells to prove the point make the world seem a richer place.”
— Bill McKibben, author of Long Distance and The End of Nature
Until I jumped into this topic, I automatically assumed that a book about trees (lots about apples!) would be factual but dry. Instead, these lush plant-focused reads really do introduce you to the Inner Thoughts of plants! Which is a little scary, if you think about it.