This Sunday I read Michael Pollan’s book, The Botany of Desire. The book is a natural history of man and four plants: the apple, the tulip, cannabis, and the potato. Now that I think of it, this might be the only life-science book I’ve ever for recreation, but there are certainly worse places to begin.
Michael Pollan is not only a writer, but a gardener. Throughout the four sections he draws on history, biography, genetics, economics, biotechnology, and culture at large in a delightfully consilient manner. The high botanical drama of man’s Apollonian quest for order versus his yielding to Dionysian revelry is interwoven with Pollan’s own personal experience.

While it is not a dedicated study of eco-issues, the work is nicely book-ended with thoughts on the man-environment interaction–the plants we domesticate, and the ways we are subtly domesticated in turn. I particularly like the discussion of “wildness” and “wilderness,” and some provoking thoughts on intoxication. I thought the apple section was the most interesting, but Pollan reaches his most filligreed and gushing moments in the chapter on the tulip. The potato section was a bit bland, but perhaps that is to be expected. Overall, the book is an interesting romp.