This Book is a Plant

by Eduardo Navarro, Merlin Sheldrake, Abi Palmer

We've become used to thinking of plants as things for us to as food, tools, resources, or just as an attractive background to our own lives.

But it's time to change our minds.

New research shows that plants can think, plan - and may even have memories. We share our planet with beings whose potential we have only glimpsed. Featuring the writing of Robin Wall Kimmerer, Susie Orbach and Merlin Sheldrake,  This Book is a Plant  will be your handbook to the new showing you a pathway to completely reimagine your relationship with a different kind of natural world. Delve into a world of moss and Sheila Watt-Cloutier transports us to the Arctic spring, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan discovers the pleasures of painting trees, and Rebecca Tamás puts roots down through earth and soil.

This Book is a Plant  is made from it was once part of a tree. But it's also a the first shoots of a radical new way of seeing the world around you.

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Science, Essays, Biology, Environment, Ecology

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of new essays and excerpts from previously published volumes accompanies the upcoming Wellcome Collection exhibition Rooted Beings (a collaboration with La Casa Encendida, Madrid, it’s curated by Bárbara Rodríguez Muñoz and Emily Sargent and will run from 24 March to 29 August). The overarching theme is our connection with plants and fungi, and the ways in which they communicate. Some of the authors are known for their nature writing – there’s an excerpt from Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life, Jessica J. Lee (author of Turning and Two Trees Make a Forest) contributes an essay on studying mosses, and a short section from Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass closes the book – while others are better known in other fields, like Susie Orbach and Abi Palmer (author of Sanatorium).

I especially enjoyed novelist Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s “Wilder Flowers,” which is about landscape painting, balcony gardening in pots, and what’s pretty versus what’s actually good for nature. (Wildflowers aren’t the panacea we are sometimes sold.) I was also interested to learn about quinine, which comes from the fever tree, in Kim Walker and Nataly Allasi Canales’ “Bitter Barks.” Sheila Watt-Cloutier’s essay on the Western influence on Inuit communities in northern Canada, reprinted from Granta, is one of the best individual pieces – forceful and with a unique voice, it advocates reframing the climate change debate in terms of human rights as opposed to the economy – but has nothing to do with plants specifically. There are also a couple of pieces that go strangely mystical, such as one on plant metaphors in the Kama Sutra.

So, a mixed bag that jumbles science, paganism and postcolonial thought, but if you haven’t already encountered the Kimmerer and Sheldrake (or, e.g., Rooted by Lyanda Lynn Haupt and Losing Eden by Lucy Jones) you might find this a good primer.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

[Faye-Linn Van Dillen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Paar hele mooie essays, maar ook paar matige. Vegetal Transmutation, How to Study the Mosses en A Planet Without Flowers faves

[Charlotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 star essays in this book worth of reading:
- wilder flowers
- nature as health
- Upirngasaq (Arctic spring)

[Suus · Rating 3 out of 5]

a collections of essays. didn’t like all of them but loved: wilder flowers, a planet without flowers, nature as health, what the wind can bring and upirngasaq <3

[Maud Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent read, a sufficient taster for anyone wanting to get into contemporary environmental thought in regards to the climate crisis. Nice, short segments that focus on a splendid array of environmental components - from sweetgrass, to fungi, to soil mixed with classic mythology, and even the history of managed landscapes and its symbolism in religion.

The art at the start of each chapter was really lovely too- a nice touch! Always for the mixing of science and art.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mixed bag as always with collections. I disliked the cluttered essays, the ones trying to pitch a new idea or observation in each new paragraph or those that were talking about stories they once read. The chapter illustrations also weren't my thing, maybe they don't work in black and white.

There were some really good texts and ideas in there too though.

Vegetal transmutation 3/5
Before roots 5/5
Self-portrait as a mushroom 5/5
Strange soil 1/5 (great start and message, then kept on going nowhere)
Plants know 5/5
Wilder flowers 2/5 - frustrating to read someone preaching about which flowers are wild enough when they clearly don't know anything about plants themselves... it's fine to start off gardening with non wild flowers, you can perfectly well have a flower meadow with 'really' wild flowers, and why the hell is 'bemoaning lawn-shaming' mentioned? Of course we are lawn-shaming, that should not have been in there without a note from the author. Yeah anyway this was a frustrating read for me :p
Bitter barks 3/5
How to study the mosses 5/5
A planet without flowers 1/5 - very surprised by all the people who liked this, the concept with Kama Sutra was good but the writing was all over the place.
Eco revenge 2/5
Nature as health 4/5
What the wind can bring 2/5
Arctic spring (Upirngasaq) 3/5 - interesting, easy enough to follow, but I do not vibe with Inuit culture apparently, especially not the stark gender divide, yikes.
Braiding sweetgrass (is just a 2 page thingie related to their book so no points possible)

[Francesca Wigley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t realise before I read this that is was published alongside the wellcome collective’s rooted beings exhibition, which I saw last year, and it feels like a good accompaniment. The essays are all quite varied, and it’s nice to have a mix of more science focused essays alongside essays that are more about vibe (self-portrait as a mushroom, I’m looking at you).

I liked the merlin sheldrake chapter the most, but it’s adapted from entangled life which I loved so no surprises there! Also cool to see references to attention restoration theory in araceli camargo’s essay, as it’s a big part of my MA thesis but have never come across it in a non academic text! The whole collection covers lots at quite a shallow level but gave me lots of things to delve deeper into which will be fun!

[Tim Chaplin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title and cover grabbed my attention. I borrowed this from my local library. A collection of essays about plants and the natural world. Most memorable bits was an essay about moss which I hadn't thought about but there are whole gardens devoted to different mosses in Japan. I hope to read more about plant life around us. I am trying to look more at the trees and plants on my urban walks and appreciate more the trees and flora in the City I live in. We have forgotten how important all of the healthy bacteria there is around us and how plants produce the oxygen we breathe in as well as help sinking carbon. Look after the plants and trees.

[Rowan Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really different from what I normally read but I enjoyed it.

It was a good book to pick up and put down in between reading other things because of the nature of it being a collection of short essays.

I really enjoyed the many perspectives and fields that I learnt about. Very informative and thought provoking.

It's definitely worth a read even just for the eclectic mix of narratives, styles and interpretations.

My favourite piece was by Merlin Sheldrake and I now have entangled life on my to read list! I'd definitely recommend this book as an accessible springboard into non-fiction on the environment and natural science. It presents these topics in an easily digestible way.

[Vasilis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of essays. Some of them are exceptional, such as "Upirngasaq" by Sheila Watt- Cloutier or "Nature As Health" by Araceli Camargo, while some others are more mediocre. However, there is one important and unifying message that permits the whole book: We need to learn from nature and indigenous knowledge to deal with the social and ecological adversities of our times.

[Rosemary Nagy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was pretty decent, but that’s it. Each essay was interesting, but none of them were super impactful. I was disappointed that quite a few of the essays were just excerpts from books I had already read.

Overall: it was okay, but not amazing. It took me so long to read because I kept falling asleep.

[John Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable book, perhaps not as inspiring as I'd anticipated, but worth it for the chapter by Sheila Watt-Cloutier.

[Henrietta · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5, I like the wellcome collection. This is a book of unique essays on plants and the natural world. Enjoyed dipping in and out of them.

[Withmanyroots · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stretching essays from an inspiring exhibition at Wellcome Collection last year

[Joycelyn Longdon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful and creative essays!

[Wendy Wuyts · Rating 4 out of 5]

They were all great and unique, but the two essays that touched me deeply were
* self-portrait as a mushroom in the damp and leafy forest
* strange soil

[Valeddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's fine. Pick and choose, skim and peruse.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Chiant. Aucune info scientifique, que des histoires personnelles plus ou moins en lien avec la nature.

[Philippa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cast aside your device and immerse yourself in the leaves of this volume of thought-provoking essays. Subtitled ‘How to grow, learn and radically engage with the natural world’, the book gathers together writings from philosophers, scientists, indigenous thinkers, climate activists and more, including Robin Wall Kimmerer, Merlin Sheldrake and Susie Orbach.
The focus is mainly, but not only, on plants. There’s everything from plant references in the Kama Sutra, to fascinating mosses and fungi, the ability of plants to perceive, and a Quechua perspective on the tree that gives us quinine. Savour the variety and richness of the writings and black-and-white artworks – and then go out into nature, breathe it in, notice things, and be at peace.