Great book - mediocre narration

This is a great little book introducing the wild and wacky world of plant physiology, phenologies and adaptations.

The narration is adequate but he pronounces most botanical terms a little strange. The one that irked me the most was pronouncing "trichomes" like "trickomes." Like, bruh, they're "TRY-chomes" as in tricycle. Most of these types of terms are pronounced a little funky. Didn't mar the book too much but a little annoying.

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9 people found this helpful

Fantastic book

The book itself was fantastic, my only wish was that Matt had narrated it himself. The narrator wasn't bad per say but Matt brings an enthusiasm when he talks that just can't be replicated.

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5 people found this helpful

It’s like listening to a documentary

I liked the first and last chapters. The middle section was very scientific and a little unrelatable. It felt like it was written more for botanists or ecologists than for the common gardener.

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4 people found this helpful

A brilliant book for plant lovers

The author collects great examples and explores them, hoping you'll get hooked on plants. And he succeeds, although I was already a plant lover. The examples are brilliant. I even discovered why the common blackberry I often fight in the landscape is so successful. Who knew that fish disperse seeds?
If you like botany and plants, get this book. You'll learn a great deal. I listened to the main plant chapters twice.
The narration is solid. I hope I'm this happy with all of my book purchases in 2021.

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3 people found this helpful

Fascinating

great book, narrator was good as well. I do kind of wish Matt would have just narrated it himself since a lot of its written in his own perspective. after binging the podcast it took me a few minutes to adjust to hearing someone else narrating thoughts.

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2 people found this helpful

This will open your eyes to the living green world

I was already in love with green living things before listening to this, but this deepened my amazement at the complex and wonderful lives of plants. Learning about the living things around me has made every walk outside more beautiful exciting, and interesting day by day.

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Amazing glimpse into the world of plants

This is a great delivery of a fun and interesting piece of literature. There’s a lot to learn, for anyone, but it’s a great time

As a park ranger I love getting a peek into the deeper sides of some of this bigger subject

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Great book

I loved Matt's story, and it is very informative.


I rarely complain about narration, I can hear his inhale paragraph. It does get alittle annoying. I wish Matt had narrated this book. I love his podcast and voice.

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Wonder, is ready to bloom.

In 23 years of being a native plant nerd, I couldn’t have said it better with another 27 years of trying.

Wonder, is ready to bloom.

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Starts off good. Gets very technical fast

I enjoyed the more personal narratives about the author’s journey to stuffing plants. The story about restoring mining sites was good. Then the book gets super technical, perhaps in an effort to wow us with all the amazingly complex stuff plants can do. But unfortunately with that technical detail we lost a personal thread. My other critique about the book is that the voice of the narrative didn’t match for me. It was a little monotonous and lacked a certain enthusiasm that might have softened the technical feel of many of the passages.

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