There are times when you really have that Aha moment and say “OK. I didn’t know anything until now. I thought I did.” One such moment was when I read the book Alice in the Land of Plants by Yiannis Manetas from the University of Crete Press and Springer.
Yiannis Manetas is an experienced plant physiologist (University of Patras, Greece). He draws attention to the fascinating and complex world of plant biology. In an effort to reach a wide audience, the author writes in a more general style, with minimal specialized jargon.
If you like plants, flowers, nature, you should read the book! You will discover incredible information and details about plants. If you respect them once, after reading you will respect them a thousand times!
How this book came to my hands
The book Alice in the Land of Plants came into my hands by a coincidence.
My wife (no relation with the garden) told to a friend of hers, owner of a bookstore that I maintain KALLIERGO.
He told her that he is now reading a very good book on plants that has captivated him. He suggested she buy it and donate it to me, which she did.
“I brought you this,” he said, “but I don’t know if you’ll like it. I find it boring because it’s densely written and because there are no pictures,” she said.
How wrong she was!
Only the first day I read 80 pages. That’s how fascinating I found this book!
What will we learn from reading the book Alice in the Land of Plants
About plants is the obvious answer.
But what makes the difference is the way he does it.
Yiannis Manetas takes you by the hand as if you were a small child and shows you the world of plants without bogging you down with unnecessary details.
I have grown up and been educated reading English and American literature because I consider it the best and most unbiased literature there is.
There were times when I would forget myself and think I was reading a foreign book translated into Greek. In fact the opposite has happened. The book has also been translated into English.
The speech reminded me of Carl Sagan in Cosmos. Where he could make the difficult, simple and easy to understand.
He explains the mechanisms that make plants, although they don’t move, the living creatures that have survived every catastrophe, unlike animals that have suffered giant-scale extinctions.
It explains how plants work and process the atmosphere.
It explains why plants are responsible for the world as we know it today.
Illuminates the “senses” of plants, the way they perceive the environment.
It talks about the defense mechanisms of plants. The ones that have helped them to exist for billions of years.
And so much more in the 392 pages of the book.
Plants are super heroes and complex chemical factories
From the first few pages of reading the book, the way you see plants will change.
You won’t pass them by without much thought. You will stand and admire them. From the herbaceous plants to the largest trees.
You will begin to understand how many wondrous things happen in and around each plant.
You will begin to understand about soil, symbiosis, fallowing, infestations, diseases, fungi, bacteria, fruits, flowers, insects, environment, animals, atmosphere, humans.
I have no affiliation with the author or the publisher. This post was made as a result of my reading and enthusiasm for the book “Alice in the Land of Plants“. The illustrations of the book, have been done by Myrsini Maneta.
Tags: ALICE IN THE LAND OF PLANTS • BOOK • YIANNIS MANETAS
