Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest

Rating:
Summary: Why this is an excellent book
Review: Why is this book great? Two words: reads well. Many people, like myself, see scientific books as dull and hard to follow because of a general lack of knowledge regarding the subject of the book. Plotkin, however, does a great job of making this book fun to read, for the people who know nothing about how plants work in producing their healing chemicals, to knowledgeable botanists who could have contributed to this book as well. This book reads like a story, and Plotkin does a great job of weaving tidbits of humor into this journal of everyday life among the Indians of Amazonia. His humorous stories in this book are refreshing interjections to the detailed descriptions of plant life, as well. All in all, I greatly recommend this book to anyone who has ever wondered how indigenous people in the rainforest are able to survive in today's world