The Book Discussion Group will meet on Tuesday evening, March 16, from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. We will be discussing The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan. Subtitled A Plant’s-Eye View of the World, this book is a case study of four plants—apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes. It speaks, metaphorically, of how plants have advanced their own agendas by making themselves attractive to human beings.

Plants have what Pollan calls an “existential predicament” – they can’t move. Yet some plants have managed to get themselves all over the world. To manipulate humans into doing what they want, apples use sweetness, tulips beauty, marijuana intoxication and potatoes nutrition.