Book Review: The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan. © 2002 Random House. ISBN 9780375760396. Paperback. Popular Science. 304 pages. $16.00 US. Source: local bookstore purchase.
A half-cooked book makes for indigestion.
This book was promising. The premise behind the book intrigues — that plants can attract or manipulate humans just like hummingbirds or bees. It is likewise laudable for an author to focus on the history behind ‘ordinary’, often ignored plants like the Apple, Tulip, Cannibas and Potato — showing how ‘extraordinary’ they really are. But that’s where the book’s merits end.
Not only did parts of the book seem poorly researched, but there was a sense of being haphazardly thrown together — i.e. the author kept going round and round saying the same things in different ways, as if he wasn’t sure he’d proved his point … or maybe he just enjoyed his own lyrical voice. The pages dragged on and the reader realizes he/she is still in the same territory as 20 pages previously. What Pollan said in 300 pages could most certainly have been said in 150 … maybe less. One thing is for sure: his editor failed miserably. Read more
Synopsis: Set in early medieval Ireland, where Druids and Christians mingle and the old ways still survive, there is an ancient forest impenetrable to outsiders with a mind of its own. Living in the heart of this forest is a cold, widowed ruler and his people. Sorcha is the seventh child and only daughter of Colum, Lord of Sevenwaters. She grows up happy, well-loved and protected by her six elder brothers, despite the distance of their father and the death of their mother. Running wild and undisciplined, the children are raised by the forest and in many ways oblivious to the encroaching events of the human world. But change comes to Sevenwaters–and nothing can ever be the same again. War with the Saxons and Britons threatens, and the peace of Sevenwaters is shattered when a Briton is captured by Colum and his warriors. Sorcha and her favourite brother Finbar disobey their father and secretly help the young Briton escape, but this act triggers Lord Colum to find a new wife who is not what she seems. Sorcha is the only one who can tell that their new step-mother is a manipulative sorceress with everyone under her spell. 
