Sarah Kanning

It’s autumn, and I’m rededicating myself to blog by starting a new tradition for Tuesdays: the Writer’s Bookshelf, wherein I will recommend some good readin’ of particular interest to writers.

I’ll kick things off with the wonderfully fun Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln’s Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart, featuring illustrations by Briony Morrow-Cribbs and Jonathan Rosen (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2009).

Stewart’s style is entertaining and breezy, with lots of historical anecdotes thrown in (in addition to Lincoln’s mother, we learn about President James Garfield’s assassin, details of how Socrates met his end, and more) as well as some nice tidbits of science (how poison ivy, oak and sumac cause skin irritation, types of toxins found in various plants, etc., etc.).

Stewart explores plants with a wide variety of traits: some kill-on-contact deadly, some mild irritants, some useful-but-dangerous, some used recreationally by humans (several of which are also deadly, notably tobacco). It’s a beautifully designed book, and the illustrations, particularly Rosen’s cartoons, add a certain whimsy to its macabre charm.

Wicked Plants is particularly of note to writers because of its focus on plants that are poisonous and/or noxious in some way, which makes it a nice supplement to herbal guides that focus on edible and medicinal plants, or more general field guides. Murder mystery writers in particular will find much to love here.

I found the book useful for world-building in speculative fiction; my work-in-progress has some scenes outdoors in the desert and in grassland, and using a few of these plants as models made things much more interesting for my characters, who had to avoid some and use others VERY carefully.

My one criticism is that the book lacks an index; the table of contents is fairly detailed, and that helps, but it would be extremely handy to look up plants by the active toxins they contain, for instance, or the region in which they grow. Stewart does include a bibliography for further reading and a list of “poison gardens” (botanical conservatories and the like) that contain specimens of some of these deadly beauties, both useful to researchers.

The links go to Stewart’s page for the book, which I think is also notable as an example of a marketing tool for writers – many of the things she does there would work for nonfiction and fiction writers alike: http://www.amystewart.com/wickedplants.html