This Is Your Mind on Plants

Opium - Caffeine - Mescaline

By: Michael Pollan

Narrated by: Michael Pollan

Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins

Publisher's summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

Of all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience. In This Is Your Mind on Plants, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs - opium, caffeine and mescaline - and throws the fundamental strangeness of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs, while consuming (or in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants and the equally powerful taboos.

In a unique blend of history, science, memoir and reportage, Pollan shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively. In doing so, he proves that there is much more to say about these plants than simply debating their regulation, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. This groundbreaking and singular book holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds and our entanglement with the natural world.

©2021 Michael Pollan (P)2021 Penguin Audio

A wonderful book, once again.

I really enjoy Pollan's style and how he intertwines various plants into a narrative.

This is a fascinating look at the criminal war on drugs, the amazing power of caffine and gave me a beautiful new perspective on peyote.

INTERESTING, WELL READ BUT LACKING

I really enjoyed the author's last book "how to change your mind" and was looking forward to another trip into the fascinating world of psychoactive plants. This book is very interesting and does have a lot of eye-opening information. However, I felt it fell short of its predecessor. Possibly due to the pandemics travel restrictions etc, which are mentioned many times as causes for the author's plans being changed/abandoned. I feel the book would have benefited from waiting out the restrictions and continuing a little deeper into the rabbit hole. Also releasing the coffee section early and free for audible members, took a big chunk out of the finished book.