Rating: 
Summary: Great book if you already know some plants...
Review: And still ok if you're clueless. The book's small size, a convenience in the field, limits the amount of illustrations it can contain. For example, the entire gooseberry/currant family is represented by three pictures, all fitting on one page. The text, on the other hand, can't be matched. My suggestion would be to pair this book with a field guide to wild plants until you can recognise them by sight.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than many others
Review: I find this one useful. Drawings are not "natural" but compensate by revealing all major parts clearly: root, leaf, flower, stems. Anyway, I find one needs at least two books for reliable identity and often for any ID at all. Variations among species make identity of individual plants a lot harder than it might seem, excepting for a few easy plants like cat tails, purslane, etc. I agree with a prior reviewer that absence of poisonous plants is unfortunate. Also, absence of scientific names is not good, since common names aren't reliable.
Rating:
Summary: Better than many others
Review: I find this one useful. Drawings are not "natural" but compensate by revealing all major parts clearly: root, leaf, flower, stems. Anyway, I find one needs at least two books for reliable identity and often for any ID at all. Variations among species make identity of individual plants a lot harder than it might seem, excepting for a few easy plants like cat tails, purslane, etc. I agree with a prior reviewer that absence of poisonous plants is unfortunate. Also, absence of scientific names is not good, since common names aren't reliable.
Rating:
Summary: Better than many others
Review: I find this one useful. Drawings are not "natural" but compensate by revealing all major parts clearly: root, leaf, flower, stems. Anyway, I find one needs at least two books for reliable identity and often for any ID at all. Variations among species make identity of individual plants a lot harder than it might seem, excepting for a few easy plants like cat tails, purslane, etc. I agree with a prior reviewer that absence of poisonous plants is unfortunate. Also, absence of scientific names is not good, since common names aren't reliable.
Rating: 
Summary: Don?t throw away your hoe and spade yet
Review: This book is a catalog of mostly uncultivated plants that are edible or have medicinal purposes. The entries are arranged alphabetically by common name, so there is no key system- -if you're looking at a plant and you don't already know it's name, you'll have to leaf through every page of the book to see if it's there. For each entry, there is a short article that provides other names for the plant, and description, distribution, and information about uses. There is also an idealized color illustration of the plant to aid identification. The description sections are not consistent in the types of information that they provide- -some descriptions cover the plant, the fruit, or the flowers, while others cover history, varieties, and more distribution information. The uses section tells us which parts of the plant can be consumed, and how they must be prepared to eliminate any toxins that might be present.I was quite excited after reading the introduction to this book- -wow! So many plants are out there in the forest just waiting for those in the know to come by and eat them. Why plant a garden? But as I read the entries for each individual plant, I began to recognize that it would be hard to get your sole nutrition from the wild plants mentioned here. A great many of the plants are leafy greens, that are too bitter or too toxic to eat without at least soaking and often boiling, possibly several times. That got me wondering about how much nutrition could be left in a plate of well boiled wild greens, if we are cautioned not to cook cultivated greens in a similar manner because all the vitamins will be washed away. If you have to boil the heck out of these things to make them edible, wouldn't you be better off with greens that have been cultivated for thousands of years to be tender enough to consume them raw, straight out of the garden? In addition to the leafy greens, Angier includes a few fruits like blueberries and cranberries (the illustration for blueberry leaves is like none I've ever seen in the wild before), some trees like maples and others where you can eat the inner bark lining (hopefully without killing too many trees), and some edible tubers. The descriptions of the edible tubers seem the most promising, nutritionally. Overall, I found this book an interesting read as well as somewhat informative, but I think I will keep on gardening after all.
Rating:
Summary: Don¿t throw away your hoe and spade yet
Review: This book is a catalog of mostly uncultivated plants that are edible or have medicinal purposes. The entries are arranged alphabetically by common name, so there is no key system- -if you're looking at a plant and you don't already know it's name, you'll have to leaf through every page of the book to see if it's there. For each entry, there is a short article that provides other names for the plant, and description, distribution, and information about uses. There is also an idealized color illustration of the plant to aid identification. The description sections are not consistent in the types of information that they provide- -some descriptions cover the plant, the fruit, or the flowers, while others cover history, varieties, and more distribution information. The uses section tells us which parts of the plant can be consumed, and how they must be prepared to eliminate any toxins that might be present. I was quite excited after reading the introduction to this book- -wow! So many plants are out there in the forest just waiting for those in the know to come by and eat them. Why plant a garden? But as I read the entries for each individual plant, I began to recognize that it would be hard to get your sole nutrition from the wild plants mentioned here. A great many of the plants are leafy greens, that are too bitter or too toxic to eat without at least soaking and often boiling, possibly several times. That got me wondering about how much nutrition could be left in a plate of well boiled wild greens, if we are cautioned not to cook cultivated greens in a similar manner because all the vitamins will be washed away. If you have to boil the heck out of these things to make them edible, wouldn't you be better off with greens that have been cultivated for thousands of years to be tender enough to consume them raw, straight out of the garden? In addition to the leafy greens, Angier includes a few fruits like blueberries and cranberries (the illustration for blueberry leaves is like none I've ever seen in the wild before), some trees like maples and others where you can eat the inner bark lining (hopefully without killing too many trees), and some edible tubers. The descriptions of the edible tubers seem the most promising, nutritionally. Overall, I found this book an interesting read as well as somewhat informative, but I think I will keep on gardening after all.
Rating:
Summary: A little knowledge can be dangerous...
Review: This book is very interesting with nice pictures but should not be used as a primary source in the field. In my opinion, it gives a false sense of security by failing to mention poisonous plants that appear similar to those highlighted. Also, it does not pay particular attention to precise plant identification and therefore should not be used for this purpose. Overall, I have enjoyed this book immensely, but would recommend it with caution.
Rating:
Summary: A little knowledge can be dangerous...
Review: This book is very interesting with nice pictures but should not be used as a primary source in the field. In my opinion, it gives a false sense of security by failing to mention poisonous plants that appear similar to those highlighted. Also, it does not pay particular attention to precise plant identification and therefore should not be used for this purpose. Overall, I have enjoyed this book immensely, but would recommend it with caution.
Rating:
Summary: A nice book, but should not be your only source
Review: This is an interesting guide with lots of good illustrations and detailed descriptions of the plants. But I would never dare to eat any of the plants because the book does not explain whether the edible plants could easily be confused with possibly toxic plants, it does not explain clearly enough how the edible plants should be cooked, and in some places I even question the given advice. For example, we always grew our own elderberries and were taught that the berries should never be eaten raw. They must be cooked. Anger says that the raw berries may not taste good but can be eaten raw. Is he right? I would rather trust my grandmother who grew up poor and often depended on wild plants.
Then I checked another plant I knew well, namely arrowhead. It grows wild in the wetland area of my garden. I had never checked the tubers before but now I did. They grow deep down in oxygen-deprived soil that smells horrible when disturbed. I am not sure I want to eat this plant raw, as the author suggests. In fact, the Peterson Field Guide on edible plants says that the tubers have an unpleasant taste when eaten raw, but taste delicious when cooked.
If you are just interested in knowing which plants can be eaten, this book is quite good. If you actually want to eat some of the plants, also buy the Peterson Field Guide "Edible Wild PLants." While Angier has better illustrations, Peterson has better cooking descriptions.
Rating:
Summary: Saved my Life!
Review: When I was stranded with my dog in the Alaska Wilderness for a week and a half, this book saved my life. Without it, how could I have eaten well until the aircraft came - yes, you heard - eaten well! I thank Bradford Angier greatly for this wonderful text!
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