My alternate reading material, besides Christopher Hitchens' Arguably, is Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire. Being the reader that I am, I'm unable to merely read one book at a time and I have different books stored in different places. Its also nice switching off from Arguably because it's a collection of short essays (I love short stories and collections of essays because it's great for switching between books without getting lost when picking it back up after any length of time) and Hitchens is an extremely literate/heavy writer. I suppose I never really understood his level of literary and historical knowledge until I started reading his journalistic essays. Anywho, I digress, The Botany Of Desire is a book that examines the human relationship with four different plants from the perspective of evolution. It turns the idea of artificial selection on its head, the plants unconsciously make us their gene propagators and in return they give us the traits we desire. There are even a few jabs at the naturalistic fallacy that Pollan sneaks in here and there (which I wasn't expecting). Pollan has a firm grasp on the general concepts of evolution and also writes in an entertaining and easily digestible manner which makes it an entertaining read. I will report further when I have consumed more of the book, until then here is his TED talk which explores some of the general concepts.
AUDIO ONLY (MP3)
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