A fascinating book is hampered by its approach to citations.
Author - Nigel Chaffey
Nigel Chaffey
The mighty ash, tree of materials, mythology and medicine
Ash by Edward Parker 2021. Reaktion Books Ltd Spoiler Alert! (and Summary?) Edward Parker’s Ash [which book is here appraised] is a title in Reaktion Books’ Botanical series. Having read any of my previous views on...
Celebrating Botany’s 400th birthday!
Roots to seeds: 400 years of Oxford botany by Stephen A Harris 2021. Bodleian Library Botanic gardens are important resources, both for plants and people. For example they have a major role in helping humanity manage...
A new edition of an iconic ethnobotany text
Plants, People, and Culture: The Science of Ethnobotany, 2nd edition by Michael J Balick and Paul Alan Cox 2021. CRC Press Some books have an iconic status in their field. Take, for example, Balick and Cox’s 1996/7...
Plants’ plan preserves people and planet
The Nation of Plants, by Stefano Mancuso 2021. Other Press. Who’s in charge of the Earth? Aside from religioso-spiritual responses to this question, the mantle of this awesome responsibility appears to be have been...
Plant parables for the 21st Century
A lifestyle guide where plants take the lead instead of sitting in the background.
Glorious global gambol through the plants
Around the World in 80 Plants by Jonathan Drori 2021. Laurence King Publishing Ltd. In my review of Jonathan Drori’s Around the World in 80 Trees [‘80 Trees’], I suggested there were many more tree species worthy of...
In celebration of plants
In Defense of Plants: An Exploration into the Wonder of Plants by Matt Candeias 2021. Mango Publishing. Having read a lot of books from a plants-and-people perspective lately, I’d forgotten the sheer joy of reading...
Cereal thriller brings home the bacon*
Amber Waves: The extraordinary biography of wheat, from wild grass to world megacrop by Catherine Zabinski 2020. The University of Chicago Press. Biographies are usually written about people. However, Catherine...
This is a berry good book!
Berries by Victoria Dickenson 2020. Reaktion Books Ltd. Even though I’m a Botanist I’ve never had a great understanding of fruits and seeds. I am however, aware that the fruit botanically known as a berry has a very...
Mum’s the word* in new plant book
Chrysanthemum by Twigs Way 2020. Reaktion Books Ltd. Despite being a declared lover of plants, I didn’t include ‘mums’ – as chrysanthemums are commonly known – amongst the plants that I consider most interesting. It was...
Merlin’s magnificent mushroom masterpiece
A fascinating book examines fungi not as something apart from the rest of the world, but as something intertwined with other life on the planet.
When is Botany criminal? When it’s forensic!
Murder Most Florid: Inside the Mind of a Forensic Botanist by Mark A. Spencer 2019. Quadrille Publishing Ltd. I’m aware that there are ill-informed people who think that botany is a little bit boring and not worthy of...
