This is an outstanding book that delves into the science, sociology, aesthetics, and culture related to four plants: apples, tulips, marijuana, and potatoes.

Personally, due to my interests, the sections on tulips and potatoes were the most captivating for me.

The author explores the infamous tulip mania in Holland during the 17th century. The queen of all tulips, Semper Augustus, was highly sought after, with a single bulb fetching an exorbitant price. The book also discusses the genetic modification of the NewLeaf potato, which was on the market in the US in 2001. The author's insights into GM vegetables and monocultures have made me more cautious about their implications.

In contrast to the industrialized farming methods described, Pollan also visits an organic farmer, highlighting the harmonious relationship between the farm and nature. Interestingly, the main factory-type vegetable farmer he interviewed also grows organic vegetables for his family's consumption.

The book briefly touches on the Irish Potato Famine, which was a tragic event.

The section on tulips is a pleasure to read, filled with details about their history, cultivation, and the passion they inspired. Overall, this book is a great read, offering both fascinating information and entertainment.

Michael Pollan is rapidly establishing himself as "someone I渴望了解." He is a smart writer, an inquisitive journalist, and a creative storyteller. In an era where people either don't ask questions at all or ask far too many, he is a bright light of simple food awareness.

This book combines elements of natural history, social history, regular history, botanical musings, plant biology, evolutionary theory, and psychology, with a touch of classical mythology, memoir, neuroscience, and investigative journalism to hold it all together. Pollan aims to trace the coevolution of four plants with society, linking each to a human desire that has shaped it into what it is today: the apple and sweetness, the tulip and beauty, marijuana and intoxication, and the potato and control. What he ultimately writes from this neat little thesis is something far greater than the sum of its parts, a true exploration (a word I use often, but I think it really applies here) of what it means to be human in a decidedly natural world.

One of the ideas he frequently returns to is that our relationship with the natural world is a balance between Apollonian (controlled, geometric, structured, artificial) and Dionysian (frenetic, shifting, chaotic, and natural) forces. I think he really hits the mark with this notion, as well as with the conclusion that it's a much more complex relationship than it initially appears. The complexity of the question is due in part to the many human urges (such as morality) that don't neatly fit into either camp, and in part to the ambiguity of the controlling agent within the framework of nature's chaos. It's an impressively thoughtful approach, and the broad scope allowed by a philosophical, rather than purely scientific, foundation means the reader gets to learn a little about a lot along the way.

I won't ruin anyone's enjoyment of the book by revealing the details of how each plant and desire is examined, but I will assure you that the how is not as straightforward and easy as you might expect. This is becoming a characteristic of Pollan's writing, just as it has always been a hallmark of great writing: a clear and simple idea considered with breadth and depth in a well-organized manner, so that you don't realize how much you're learning until you're finished. I can't wait to read more of his work.

An earlier Pollan book, which was also a bestseller, is Botany. Just like his later and better books, Botany explores the thesis that plants co-evolve with us in four sections.

There is some filler in it, but the best section is undoubtedly the one on intoxication. Doubters should read the introduction and then skip to section 3.

Pollan's best works always make me view the world in a different light, and this passage changed the way I thought about gardens, what they are, and what they could be.

"I sometimes think we've allowed our gardens to be bowdlerized, that the full range of their powers and possibilities has been sacrificed to a cult of plant prettiness that obscures more dubious truths about nature, our own included. It hasn't always been this way, and we may someday come to regard the contemporary garden of vegetables and flowers as a place almost Victorian in its repressions and elisions."

He then goes on to discuss a witch's garden, which included intoxicants and medicines, rather than just beautiful flowers. He argues that when the church murdered witches, they converted the contents of these gardens from taboo objects to medicines made acceptable by what we'd now call physicians. I'm sure I'm simplifying the argument, but it was interesting. It's a great chapter.

And here is one on what might be Pollan's greatest weakness as a reporter but also his greatest strength as a writer: "I am literally absentminded, prone to be thinking about something else, something past, when I am ostensibly having a fresh experience."

Of the other chapters, the best is on potatoes, and the other two are about apples and tulips.

As for the books, I still rate Omnivore, Cooked, and A Place of My Own higher than this one. However, if you break it down to chapters, Botany's chapter on intoxication would jump to the top five Pollan chapters, alongside the Omnivore stuff and Cooked's chapter on fermented foods.

I was about to embark on a journey by airplane. Given that I tend to get various kinds of grumpy during long transits, I decided to bring a plethora of different books. I brought "Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center" by bell hooks, "Asking For It" by Louise O'Neill, and "The Great Perhaps" by Joe Meno - all of which were mine. Additionally, I raided my girlfriend's bookcase for another one. I expected this particular book to be the last one I'd pick up. After all, I wanted to know about Michael Pollan. He is widely regarded as a significant figure, right? And everyone in Berkeley seems to want him to be Obama's Secretary of Agriculture. (Although, come to think of it, I haven't read Obama's books either.)

Surprisingly, I liked the book! I had anticipated something drier. For the most part, it was just this really smart guy discussing the things he loves: natural selection, Johnny Appleseed, weed stories, people, Dionysus, bugs, and genetically modified foods. I thought it was quite great how, in the beginning, he said, "Here are four things I'm going to talk about," but then he didn't disclose what he was going to say about them. For instance, you know the last chapter is going to be about potatoes, but you don't know that it's going to be a conversation about the safety of genetically modified potatoes.

And clearly, the author has a deep love for his plants, which is nice. However, at times, it felt rather repetitive, with the same points being made over and over again, which did get boring. But overall, I was engaged enough to power through it during bouts of neck-pain-induced sleep on planes, buses, and trains while I was on the east coast for three days. This is more than I can say for bell hooks, whose writing requires me to pay close attention and think critically about every word.

“For it is only by forgetting that we ever really drop the thread of time and approach the experience of living in the present moment, so elusive in ordinary hours.” This profound statement about time and presence sets the tone for a deeper exploration. I have a soft spot for quotes about time and plants. Michael Pollan’s *The Botany of Desire* deftly handles the latter, taking the reader on a captivating journey through the cultivation of four plants tied to four fundamental human desires. Written with lyrical mirth and witty insights, Pollan (what a perfect name) demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed reciprocal relationships throughout history. Michael Pollan is an absolute delight to read. *How to Change Your Mind* was one of my favorite books of 2019 and *This Is Your Mind on Plants* was one of my favorite books of 2021. I highly recommend them!

“Sooner or later your fingers close on that one moist-cold spud that the spade has accidentally sliced clean through, shining wetly white and giving off the most unearthly of earthly aromas. It's the smell of fresh soil in the spring, but fresh soil somehow distilled or improved upon, as if that wild, primordial scene has been refined and bottled: eau de pomme de terre. You can smell the cold inhuman earth in it, but there's the cozy kitchen too, for the smell of potatoes is, at least by now, to us, the smell of comfort itself, a smell as blankly welcoming as spud flesh, a whiteness that takes up memories and sentiments as easily as flavors. To smell a raw potato is to stand on the very threshold of the domestic and the wild.”

Pollan Ratings (so far):

How to Change Your Mind ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This Is Your Mind on Plants ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Botany of Desire ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Mr Pollan, in his work The Botany of Desire, presents a thought-provoking perspective. He posits that our relationship with plants is far more intricate than it initially appears.

We have managed to domesticate numerous photosynthetic species, but they, in turn, exert various influences on us. Through captivating stories of four specific plants - the apple (representing sweetness), the tulip (beauty), marijuana (intoxication), and the potato (control) - he imparts a wealth of information.

For instance, apple trees grown from seed yield bitter fruit, while grafting clones trees with good fruit but sacrifices genetic diversity. Johnny "Appleseed" Chapman played a role in keeping the American frontier supplied with spirits.

The tulip's coloration is due to two chemicals, and its famous beauties owe their patterns to a virus. The author contrasts the Apollonian nature of the tulip with the Dionysian allure of other flowers.

Marijuana has two varieties, indica and sativa, with different characteristics. Growers have hybridized them to combine strengths. Pollan also points out humanity's constant search for altered states of consciousness.

In the section on the potato, he discusses genetic engineering, highlighting the Apollonian order vs Dionysian wildness. The NewLeaf potato, engineered by Monsanto, has its pros and cons.

All this plant talk has piqued my interest in gardening.

A brief yet captivating history of four plants whose genetic fates have been significantly changed by humans - the apple, the tulip, cannabis, and the potato. Pollan contends that although we view domestication as a strictly one-sided, subject-to-object process, there might actually be some co-evolutionary force at play. Johnny Appleseed's endeavors were greatly beneficial to the genetic proliferation of apples, and the science of mass potato farming means more seeds are sown each year. But we'll come to the argument part shortly.

As an eccentric and unconventional history, this is truly remarkable. It turns out that botany is an incredibly flexible medium through which one can journey from social psychology to religion to bioethics. Pollan takes fascinating detours through early American advertising strategies, briefly pauses to describe the hallucinogenic mixture of mushrooms and opium that European witches would administer via dildo, and then轻快地hops onto the cost-benefit economics of potato plants engineered to produce their own pesticide. It's a wonderfully engaging trip, made even more so by Pollan's clear, thoughtful, and frankly beautiful writing. I haven't enjoyed a piece of nonfiction prose on a purely aesthetic level in a long time, and for that pleasure alone, I could recommend this book.

Regarding the argument - how to best put this - it's not really much of one. This entire co-evolution idea occurred to Pollan one day while he was gardening, and it never really leaves the realm of a warm afternoon, busy hands, and strange and intriguing thoughts. The whole thing comes out interesting, undeniably charming, but ultimately nothing more than an intellectual exercise. An exercise that I enjoyed, mind you, but I'm really not looking for musings on the Apollonian and Dionysian paradigms in my discussions of anything related to evolution: I'm after, you know, scientifically sound genotypic mechanisms. But as I said, I was perfectly happy to go along. I just fervently hope that no one came away from this book believing that this is what is meant by the "theory of evolution."

Eclectic, engaging subject matter. A bit of pleasant but rather fluffy intellectual self-indulgence tacked on the edges as an excuse. Wonderful writing. A good time all around.

Pollan is truly one of my favorite kinds of writers. He is a modern polymath who has the remarkable ability to apply scientific, historic, and literary knowledge to whatever he is penning. When this is executed well, it doesn't matter what the subject matter is. For example, tulips aren't really my cup of tea, even though they are currently sitting on my dining room table. However, the interplay between history, literature, and science truly fascinates me, which is precisely why nearly all of the books I read fall into one of those categories.

That being said, I couldn't get into the first half of "Botany of Desire" because the book felt padded. I had been curious about the truth behind the Johnny Appleseed legend, so it was great that Pollan delved into it. But it could have easily been a wonderful ten-page essay. Instead, he stretched it to nearly 60 pages. He repeats himself frequently, circles around the topic, and includes details about people he's met that are both irrelevant and not very interesting.

So far, it seems like a three-star book. However, the section on pot gets hilariously loopy. Halfway through this chapter, after an interesting history of what the War on Drugs has done for pot, and right at the point where he would have started to repeat himself in other chapters, he instead finds himself in Amsterdam, trying the new breeds of pot for the first time in years. The rest of the chapter is a long, adoring love letter to the glories of weed, written while he is ecstatically baked. Non-pot fans might not find this chapter as endearing as I did, but for me, as a casual fan of the drug and, more importantly, as someone who finds the question of what mind-altering drugs do for us interesting, it was the best part of the book. It's too bad he still can't get past the slightly apologetic tone that most grown-ups who still smoke pot feel compelled to adopt. Why not just mention it matter-of-factly as a normal thing that many people do? After all, that's what it is. But still, it was fun stuff.

The final chapter on potatoes contains some of the usual "Holy shit, we have no idea what we're doing" stuff about genetic engineering, and there's a "sky is falling" feel to it that made me roll my eyes. However, his take on it is interesting enough. Overall, I did enjoy this book.

I spent an inordinate amount of time delving into this book. However, I had to DNF it, which means I did not finish. I'm truly done with it.

His wild tirade in attempting to tear down the character of Johnny Appleseed was simply excessive for my taste. I reached a point where he was going on and on about his supposed "girly hands." It was enough to make me roll my eyes

Every schoolchild is familiar with the mutually beneficial dance between honeybees and flowers. The bee gathers nectar and pollen to create honey, and in the process, spreads the flowers' genes far and wide.

In "The Botany of Desire," Michael Pollan cleverly shows how people and domesticated plants have formed a similar reciprocal relationship. He skillfully links four fundamental human desires - sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control - with the plants that fulfill them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato.

By telling the stories of these four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to meet humankind's most basic yearnings. And just as we have benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So, the question arises: who is really domesticating whom?

First up is the apple, and the story of John Chapman, also known as Johnny Appleseed or the American Dionysus. What an eccentric character he was.

The book also explores the Triumph tulips, marijuana, and more. In my mind, I even misnamed the author as Pollen.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it. It's a fascinating exploration of the relationship between humans and plants.

TR The Omnivore's Dilemma
4* The Botany of Desire

I thought this was an interesting yet rather long-winded book.

The author delves into the discussion of four distinct plants and elaborates on how they have "coevolved" with humans to derive the advantages of human interaction. It is most aptly summarized in one of the initial chapters of the book when the author contemplates whether he planted potatoes in his garden of his own free will or if the potatoes, by virtue of their deliciousness, persuaded him to do so.

One of the primary things I gleaned from this book is the significance of diversity. From the loss of heritage apple varieties due to the preference for overly sweet varieties to the Monsanto NewLeaf potatoes that are themselves registered with the EPA as a pesticide, I was introduced to the concept of monoculture that I was previously unaware of.

I was astounded to learn about the exacting potato requirements of the fast food industry - only one type of unblemished potato is deemed acceptable for french fry production. Given the extremely narrow profit margins in farming, a farmer selling to these companies almost has to resort to using GMO crops and/or copious amounts of pesticides to make ends meet.

This has undoubtedly transformed the way I perceive organic versus non-organic foods. I formerly believed that purchasing non-organic potatoes was acceptable, but confronted with the reality of what could potentially be present in them (one of the potato farmers wouldn't even consume the potatoes he grew), I now feel that I truly need to buy local and/or organic for the sake of my health.

Four common plants, and I was completely unaware that each of them had such a rich and fascinating history.

I had a certain degree of familiarity with the development of marijuana (not from personal use, mind you, but from being around those who did - after all, it was Oregon). I knew that it was thoroughly demonized during the "just say no" era of drug awareness education.

The chapters on the apple, tulip, and potato provided cautionary tales about the danger of sacrificing diversity in the name of commerce. Darn the industry and their focus on shipping, appearance over taste, and money over environmental responsibility. And darn us consumers for being trapped in our busy schedules, settling for cheap produce, the quick and easy, and the short-term.

Even though I'm probably being influenced by the plants, I still long for a garden in which to spread their genetic material. Am I a plant pimp? If only.

Regarding the idea that plants cause us to help them multiply by being appealing to us: I see this language as presenting the concept in terms that we can understand, finding a common thread and elaborating on it. I don't think Mr. Pollan meant that plants are deliberately choosing the characteristics that will make us replant and increase their numbers year after year. It's supposed to be a mutually beneficial interaction. If they could deliberately change us, would they allow us to spray potatoes like that or make the mealy Red Delicious, which I'm sure was once actually delicious, the most common apple in US supermarkets? I wonder what it would be like if plants could fight back against us. Or perhaps our dependence on the few varieties that now have weaknesses due to continuous cloning and inbreeding will lead to a plant-revenge.