Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Gardening-related Book Review: Wicked Plants

This is a completely unsolicited book reviews, but I hope it's not unwelcome :)

"Wicked Plants:
The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities" by Amy Stewart

First of all, look at the book!
Nice, huh? I know we shouldn't 'judge a book by it's cover', but it's okay this time. The great design and illustrations match quite well with this interesting read. (Love the gold tassel!) The book is laid out like a series of (very) short stories on individual or related groups of wicked plants. "Wicked plants" might fall into one of these categories: illegal, dangerous, deadly, etc. It was interesting to learn about the sordid history of so many plants from all over the world. Plants have even changed the course of history a time or two. We tend to think of plants as "innocent" and "lovely", but some folks think of them as murder weapons. Ouch! And then, there are the people looking for an escape from reality...geez, people get high off all kinds of vegetation. Who knew? Well, Amy Stewart does and she'll tell you all about it in Wicked Plants. You can find out more on her blog. I've read all of Amy's books and my personal favorite is "From the Ground Up", about her adventures in starting a first garden in Santa Cruz, CA.


4 comments:

Dan said...

What an interesting cover, might be even better with some of the intoxicating vegetation :-) I'll have to give this book a read.

Michelle said...

That looks like a fun read! I'll have to put that on my reading list.

Blossom said...

I agree with Dan. Nice looking cover. I love reading. Maybe I should this book.

Stefaneener said...

I've seen it and it sounds like a nice bedtime read.