Customer Reviews

Flower Hunters

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
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2 star:		(1)
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John Gribbin is best known for his science books, but this is something completely different. Hardly any science but lots of adventures and biography of mostly 19th century explorers who risked life and limb (and sometimes lost one or the other) searching for new kinds of plants to take back to the civilized world. People crazy enough to climb high mountains with no equipment for the sheer fun of it, explorers who ventured into the Amazonian rainforest and suffered disease, poisonous stinging insects and murderous natives to bring back quinine to cure malaria, a European who travelled in China in disguise, fighting off pirates twice, to learn the secrets of tea production, and a middle-aged Victorian British gentlewoman who travelled round the world twice just to paint flowers. The plants they sent back to England alone would have paid off the National Debt, but they mostly made fortunes for other people and were left with nothing for themselves. Minor characters in the story include Captain Bligh, of the Bounty, and Charles Darwin. This is a terrific read, in the same vein as (but better than) the same authors' biography of Robert FitzRoy.

Charlie T.

I have been an avid reader of John and Mary Gribbin for a number of years. The Flower Hunters is another fine example of their work. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to all of my friends. Being someone who generally reads hard-core science, I found it an interesting distraction to get away from the technical side of writing.
I applaud their efforts and hope that they keep up the great work.
Mr. Bill

The book contains eleven biographical sketches of the botanists, not about their work. Maybe it's the British scholarly style, but it starts slow and stays slow. I wanted to know what these pioneering botanists found, or how they did their work, how they advanced botany.

Let's see, what is positive about this book? The profiles sometimes mention personal traits of the botanists, give historical context about times with hereditary religious and academic posts, the difficulties of long distance travel... The cover is very pretty, the pages are heavy paper, the typeface looks nice... This book departs from John Gribbin's other science writings which I loved. Maybe it is primarily the work of his wife, a historian about botany? Oh well.