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Reviews
The Cabaret of Plants: Forty Thousand Years of Plant Life and the Human Imagination by Richard Mabey
cimorene1558's review against another edition
This is very good, but there is too much going on in my life to finish it right now, so I'm putting it aside until August or so.
taxideadaisy's review against another edition
3.0
Listened to the audiobook. I have thoughts about the book itself as well as the audio, and hope to post reviews soon.
jenmcmaynes's review against another edition
3.0
Enjoyable look at plant life, in a popular science/interesting factoid way. There was a lot of overlap with other books I have read in this area (by Pollan, Diamond, etc) but enough new-to-me material to keep me engaged. I particularly enjoyed the tales of the Victorians’ obsession with ferns, the discovery of the Venus flytrap, and details of some of the longest lived trees in the world.
nicole_j_abley's review against another edition
5.0
This is an excellent read. The variety of vignettes is refreshing and the authorial voice is both knowledgable and personable. It makes you feel as if the author would be both a wonderful person to listen to a lecture from and then to get a drink with afterwards.
uderecife's review against another edition
3.0
This book covers a very interesting, though not much explored, subject of the history of how humanity came to perceive plants and their roles. This, in some sense, is a history of botany, but taken in a much broader sense of how societies understand plants.
As the subtitle suggests, the book focus on the human perspective of plants, with many tales of discoveries and fascinations, fads, and the personalities behind such events. If you read it expecting to have plants as the main characters, this will be disappointed. But that you probably know. If this is a book about the forty thousand years of plant life and the human imagination, it comes with little surprise that this will focus on the human dealings with plants.
If you like plants; and if you like to discover how humans have changed their perceptions about these fascinating yet so strange living things, this book will definitely entertain you as well as enlighten you on this subject.
As the subtitle suggests, the book focus on the human perspective of plants, with many tales of discoveries and fascinations, fads, and the personalities behind such events. If you read it expecting to have plants as the main characters, this will be disappointed. But that you probably know. If this is a book about the forty thousand years of plant life and the human imagination, it comes with little surprise that this will focus on the human dealings with plants.
If you like plants; and if you like to discover how humans have changed their perceptions about these fascinating yet so strange living things, this book will definitely entertain you as well as enlighten you on this subject.