The Botany of Desire - A Plant's-Eye View of the World

The conceit - are plants using us more effectively than we use them? - still works over 20 years later. The stories still feel relevant even if they have since taken some unexpected turns. An interesting contrast to Camille Dungy's "Soil", but as a non-gardener they both have my admiration.

Suggested as a follow-up to Guns, Germs, and Steel. Not nearly as interesting as that book. It takes four plants (apple, tulip, cannabis, potato) and discusses how they have co-evolved with man to reach their current state. There's a lot of interesting material: what the real value of apples in the American frontier was (hint: they weren't for eating), descriptions of the weird not-quite-apples and proto-potatoes in the evolutionary homelands of those plants, and comments from potato farmers about how they wouldn't eat what's in their fields because of the pesticides. But it's mixed in with a lot of boring musing about the Apollonian/Dionysian tension in humans, tales of the author's visits with Johnny Appleseed historians, and anecdotes about hiding cannabis plants from the cops. I would have preferred more information and less story.