Customer Reviews

Plants of Life, Plants of Death

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2 star:		(1)
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Plants of Life/ Plants of Death by Frederick Simoons is a terrific book. I am a garden writer myself (Allergy-Free Gardening) and I appreciate well-written horticultural material.
This book is full of unusual and interesting facts and stories that you probably won't find any where else (pregnant women are in special danger from eclipses, garlic warms the body, makes fighter more pugnacious, and increases semen). Garden writers would be wise to own a copy of this for reference. Folks who enjoy gardening, botany, nature and history, will appreciate
this treasure. There are quite a few useful and interesting illustrations in the book but probably what most impresses is the thoroughness of the work. It is obvious that many years of study and research went into this labor of love and the results are evident. I highly recommend Plants of Life/ Plants of Death.

The author took a few plants and exhaustively researched cultural, agricultural, economic uses, historical and medical, religious and mythological facts about them. A little India-centric for my, I'd like a world wider viewpoint, but I was well satisfied with how he covered the plants he wrote about. You can actually have some understanding about a culture by how it views plants and fits them into their lives and how they've changed with the culture over the millenia.
He offers different viewpoints and argues his own, backed up with an extensive bibliography.
Well worth the read.

Mi comentario no pretende ofender, simplemente me parecio una obra con un titulo comercial pero su contenido esta muy dedicado a pocos items, lo que la hace muy especializada y no tan generica como pretende el nombre. En realidad son muy pocas las platas descritas.

"Plants of Life, Plants of Death" has been selected for listing in "Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments: An Entheogen Chrestomathy." http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy