What Alden is ReadingIn How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan gave us a fantastic perspective on the history, usage, potential of psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin, DMT, and ayahuasca). In this highly anticipated follow-up, This is Your Mind on Plants, he focuses on opium, caffeine, and mescaline and the appeals and taboos associated with them.
Why are some psychoactive plants so widely used and accepted, while others are reserved strictly for medical use? Why does a gardener's intention and knowledge matter so much when growing certain plants? What classifies a plant as a "drug" anyway? Through his unique mixture of investigative journalism, historical research, and personal experimentation and reflection, Pollan explores these questions and more.
If you enjoyed The Botany of Desire or How to Change Your Mind, you'll love this book!
What Jill is Reading
Egg Marks the Spot: Skunk and Badger Book 2 by Amy Timberlake with pictures by Jon Klassen
I am delighted to report that this is a grand adventure, especially if you like intrigue, treachery, and surprising finds, and also friendship, good snacks, top-notch onomatopoeia, and chickens.
Psst! Preorders will get a free, frameable print featuring Jon Klassen's artwork from Skunk and the Badger and the quote "A spot of light, a good book, and off I go!"
Middle grade graphic novel
- supernatural happenings
- secrets
- sisterhood
- revealing your true self
I loved this story about a life changing summer in the Italian countryside.
What Stef and Dom are Reading
Dom and I are really enjoying this new chapter book series, about a girl named Pizazz who is a superhero, along with all the members of her family too. She also has to do normal kid stuff like go to school, and when her family moves to be closer to their grandparents, she has to start at a new school. It's never easy being the new kid, and unfortunately, being a superhero doesn't help! It's funny and very British.
What Carolyn is ReadingA beautiful, inspiring gem of a book that everyone should read and then gift to a loved one!
What Alice is Reading
I've been riveted to this audio book for the past week - slow going on my part and not the novel. For those wanting a glimpse into publishing, it doesn't paint the nicest picture, but for those of us whose misery needs company when dealing with tense and awkward social justice situations that put your job on the line, this book reads like someone throwing you a lifesaver.
What Mark is Reading
Peter Heller’s unsurpassed prose continues to reside as naturally in the West’s open spaces as it does these claustrophobically rigged interior shots, stringing together action and near clinical fact with pace and effortless phrasing. I’m not sure if Heller is getting more literary or more thrilling but I do know I’ll be tugging up the old gator waders and tagging along on his latest eco-adventure, most outlandish of fish tales—The Guide. Read it and you’re sure to get hooked on all his taut, patently captivating efforts.
Ever-clever and trained (in) on the never-yet-envisioned Amy Gerstler’s creations are grin-inducing revelations, tricked out to no end and spit-shone with great relish. Her most recent Index of Women stirs up things even more actively while still resisting any clear cut en-listing.
What Caroline is ReadingThe Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is scandalous, just as we would expect old Hollywood stars to be. Yet Reid’s characters will also surprise you, showing that maybe the rich and famous aren’t that different from us after all.