May NatureKIT - Plants, fungi, etc.

May's NatureKIT is all about plants and fungi. There are so many types of plant life, living in so many different environments. You can read about a specific species, a type of plant, a botanist, a mycologist, a particular habitat; any number of possibilities exist. And of course, related fiction.

Some ideas:
Non fiction
Plants To The Rescue by Dr. Vikram Baliga
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
Radical Mycology by Peter McCoy
The Triumph of Seeds by Thor Hanson
The Brother Gardeners by Andrea Wulf
A Natural History of Ferns by Robbin C. Moran
Ocean Sunlight by Molly Bang

Fiction
The Overstory by Richard Powers
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
What Moves The Dead by T' Kingfisher
Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland

The wiki is here, if you like to add your book.

If my Libby hold is timed right, I hope to read Entangled Life. Otherwise, I’ll listen to the audiobook of Gathering Moss by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

I had been planning to read The Light Eaters by Zoë Schlanger, but that hold came in too soon, and I’ve just finished reading it. It’s just fascinating; I highly recommend it!

My plan is to read Around the World in 80 Trees by Jonathan Drori.

I read Entangled Life last year and it was simply fantastic, so I hope it comes in for you, >2 Charon07: ! Following up on that, I'm planning on reading The Mushroom at the End of the World, which I've also heard is great. (I'm on a fungi kick after reading the novel The Marigold by Andrew F. Sullivan, which has become an all-time favorite of mine.)

I'm going to read Entangled Life for this one, can't wait!

I'm going to read a book on native plants in the U.S. Southern states. I might be able to work in The Overstory. It's been on my TBR several years!

Thinking about Braiding Sweetgrass!

I read Brush with Greatness: Van Gogh which features many of his art works that include plants of different kinds.

I just finished Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a series of essays about plants, and our ecosystem in general, and how important they are, from an American Indigenous perspective. It took me a long time to finish, but I really enjoyed it.

The June thread is up!

I read A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari. This was a fun historical mystery set in the 20s about a female botanist who uses her knowledge of plants and poisons to try to clear the name of her mentor charged with attempted murder by poison.

Braiding Sweetgrass

Kimmerer is a poet, a botanist, and a member of the Potawatomi Indigenous Americans. She blends her gift of language with indigenous philosophy and ecological science to create a series of beautiful essays, filled with love, gratitude, and hope for the Earth and our relationship to it. Although she doesn't suffer delusions about the current state of our planet, she argues that we owe it to the Earth, to ourselves, and to each other not to give into despair, which ultimately helps no one. These essays are great on their own but I feel like I got a greater effect from reading the entire book altogether.

I had been wanting to read this book for a very long time; it took me so long just to find a copy! This may be my favourite book I've read so far this year.

As for plants and fungi, this book has plenty of both.

I have started reading Around the World in 80 Trees by Jonathan Drori. I could only start now because I ordered it from the UK and it took some time to arrive. It is a wonderful book! I won't finish this month, though, because I am taking my time, reading about just one or two trees a day. I will report back in this thread when I have finished.

>15 MissBrangwen: This sounds like a lovely book! Onto Mount TBR it goes.

>15 MissBrangwen: - I gave this book to my stepdaughter for Christmas last year.

I finished reading Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake, and it was great! I was a little dubious that an entire book about fungi could hold my interest, but it was fascinating and informative.

>18 Charon07: I'm reading that one too and l absolutely agree!

When I went to the library to get the book I planned to read it couldn't be found although the system showed it to be available. Probably just shelved in the wrong place. Instead I got and read Wildflowers of Arkansas by Carl G. Hunter. This is very well done with great photos. I have been wanting to have an all native plants area in my garden for a long time and although the book was fun just to look through, it will be useful to help with planning an actual garden.

I've now finished Entangled Life and highly recommend it! Such a fascinating look at weird and wonderful fungi.

>18 Charon07: and >21 Jackie_K:, I read Entangled Life last year and just loved it, so it's cool to see you both enjoying it also!

It's part of what led me to read The Mushroom at the End of the World, which I finished today. I'm not sure I enjoyed it as much as Sheldrake's work--it was a significantly more difficult reader--but it was fascinating in its own way, and bridged so many different subjects that I believe I learned quite a bit from it. Full review written.

>3 MissBrangwen: I will have on check on this book. I like to travel and take pictures of trees.

I'm going to post this here even though it's not specifically about plants. This could have fit in multiple different months, The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf. This is a biography of Alexander von Humboldt an early naturalist who studied and was an influence in all aspects of nature. He did do a lot of work in the botanical arena and was one of the first to realize the correlation of vegetation to specific climates and divided the world into different zones: tropical, arctic etc. Quite a fascinating person.

I didn't finish the book till June, so I'm not counting it for this KIT, but I wanted to mention that Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic would be a perfect fit! You'll never think about mushrooms the same way again...