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A review by jlbrown23
The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior by Stefano Mancuso
1.0
If you buy this book, hopefully you aren't expecting to read much about plants. Or really read much period. For starters - it clocks in at 40,000 words, which is about half the length of a typical short book (to chose a popular example, HP Philosopher's Stone is 77,000 words).
The bigger problem though is that the book is mostly a bunch of tangents that have little to do with plants (or "plant intelligence and behavior", as is explicitly spelled out in THE TITLE OF THE BOOK), and much of it is handwaving hogwash (I have a better word, than hogwash, but am not sure of the language restrictions on goodreads).
An example:
Chapter 5 starts off with a fairly engaging discussion of the ability of certain plants to use odors and chemicals to coerce insects/animals into doing their biding (there is a particularly interesting description of Acacia trees and ants). This lasts for 5 pages, 2 of which are photographs, margins and headings (so really 3 pages). The author then goes on an extended anecdote about people who like hot peppers that is almost entirely "plant intelligence and behavior" free, and in fact doesn't talk much about actual peppers. It contains some musings (random thoughts that the author admits he has no actual data or evidence on) about why people (in his unverified opinion) might like hot peppers. This goes on for TWELVE pages (mercifully 3 are photographs, so really 9 pages). The chapter then wraps up with a 1 page summary that proportionally represents the chapter.
I would say this chapter was somewhere in the middle of the bull.., er, hogwash content for the book. Some were a little better, others were worse, particularly towards the end. But all in all about 25% interesting plant information, 75% tangential information that is sometimes facts (although not about anything to do with plants), sometimes weird assertions that don't appear to be based on facts/data, sometimes his own projects that he describes as successful even though it doesn't really sound like they were in any practical sense. Keep in mind that this is for something half the length of a short book to being with, so not very much cool "plant intelligence and behavior" at all.
Add one star for a really nice layout and graphics (kudos to Kyoko Watanabee, who is listed as responsible for interior design - your design & layout was the one exceptional thing about the book), subtract one star for presenting this as science and fooling non-scientists into thinking these are actual facts and not just the author's musings.
The bigger problem though is that the book is mostly a bunch of tangents that have little to do with plants (or "plant intelligence and behavior", as is explicitly spelled out in THE TITLE OF THE BOOK), and much of it is handwaving hogwash (I have a better word, than hogwash, but am not sure of the language restrictions on goodreads).
An example:
Chapter 5 starts off with a fairly engaging discussion of the ability of certain plants to use odors and chemicals to coerce insects/animals into doing their biding (there is a particularly interesting description of Acacia trees and ants). This lasts for 5 pages, 2 of which are photographs, margins and headings (so really 3 pages). The author then goes on an extended anecdote about people who like hot peppers that is almost entirely "plant intelligence and behavior" free, and in fact doesn't talk much about actual peppers. It contains some musings (random thoughts that the author admits he has no actual data or evidence on) about why people (in his unverified opinion) might like hot peppers. This goes on for TWELVE pages (mercifully 3 are photographs, so really 9 pages). The chapter then wraps up with a 1 page summary that proportionally represents the chapter.
I would say this chapter was somewhere in the middle of the bull.., er, hogwash content for the book. Some were a little better, others were worse, particularly towards the end. But all in all about 25% interesting plant information, 75% tangential information that is sometimes facts (although not about anything to do with plants), sometimes weird assertions that don't appear to be based on facts/data, sometimes his own projects that he describes as successful even though it doesn't really sound like they were in any practical sense. Keep in mind that this is for something half the length of a short book to being with, so not very much cool "plant intelligence and behavior" at all.
Add one star for a really nice layout and graphics (kudos to Kyoko Watanabee, who is listed as responsible for interior design - your design & layout was the one exceptional thing about the book), subtract one star for presenting this as science and fooling non-scientists into thinking these are actual facts and not just the author's musings.