Amy Stewart's 6 favorite books for plant enthusiasts
The best-selling author recommends works by Naoko Abe, Ann Patchett, and more

When you make a purchase using links on our site, The Week may earn a commission. All reviews are written independently by our editorial team.
Amy Stewart is the best-selling author of "Wicked Plants," "The Drunken Botanist," and several other nonfiction works about the natural world. Her new book is "The Tree Collectors," a tribute to people whose arboreal obsessions have beautified the world.
'The Sakura Obsession' by Naoko Abe (2019)
I was astonished to learn that the great majority of cherry trees in Japan are just one variety, and that many rare varieties that existed in past centuries have been lost. Naoko Abe, a journalist, gained access to a rich archive that told the story of how a passionate English gardener helped save many of them from extinction a century ago. It's a remarkable story of international friendships. Buy it here.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
'Tom Lake' by Ann Patchett (2023)
This was the best novel I read last year. Everything Patchett writes is luscious and gorgeous, but this book earns extra points from me because its story, about a mother sharing recollections with her adult daughters of a past romance, takes place on a Michigan cherry farm. Buy it here.
'Eliza Scidmore' by Diana P. Parsell (2023)
I'm going to stay with cherry trees for a moment, because this biography tells the story of a groundbreaking 19th-century journalist and world traveler who wrote books on Alaska, Japan, China, and India, then worked tirelessly to bring cherry trees to Washington, D.C. Buy it here.
'Abundant Beauty' by Marianne North (2011)
Would you like more tales of adventurous women? Botanical artist Marianne North, a friend of Charles Darwin's, traveled the world in the second half of the 19th century and made extraordinary paintings of the plants she saw. She kept a journal, and the most thrilling excerpts from her travels are included here. Buy it here.
'Frank N. Meyer: Plant Hunter in Asia' by Isabel Shipley Cunningham (1984)
Speaking of daring adventures: At the beginning of the 20th century, the man who brought us the Meyer lemon traveled all over Asia, to his great peril, in search of new food crops. Buy it here.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
'The Ghost Forest' by Greg King (2023)
King, a former journalist who became a conservation activist, discovered a trove of historical records revealing that early efforts to save California's giant redwoods were really a front for industrialists who wished to raze them. It's a shocking and entirely unexpected story. King, with his generations-long connection to the redwood forests, is the perfect person to tell the tale. Buy it here.
This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.
-
Colleges are canceling affinity graduations amid DEI attacks but students are pressing on
In the Spotlight The commencement at Harvard University was in the news, but other colleges are also taking action
-
When did computer passwords become a thing?
The Explainer People have been racking their brains for good codes for longer than you might think
-
What to know before 'buying the dip'
the explainer Purchasing a stock once it has fallen in value can pay off — or cost you big
-
Ancient India: living traditions – 'ethereal and sensual' exhibition
The Week Recommends Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism are explored in show that remains 'remarkably compact'
-
6 well-preserved homes built in the 1930s
Feature Featuring a restored 1934 colonial in Arizona and a cold-storage warehouse turned loft in New York City
-
Things in Nature Merely Grow: memoir of 'harsh beauty' after loss
The Week Recommends Chinese-American novelist Yiyun Li's 'devastating' memoir explores the deaths of her two sons
-
Sirens: entertaining satire on the lives of the ultra-wealthy stars Julianne Moore
The Week Recommends This 'blackly comic affair' unfurls at a 'breakneck speed'
-
Mrs Warren's Profession: 'tour-de-force' from Imelda Staunton and daughter Bessie Carter
The Week Recommends Mother-daughter duo bring new life to George Bernard Shaw's morality play
-
Critics' choice: Steak houses that break from tradition
Feature Eight hours of slow-roasting prime rib, a 41-ounce steak, and a former Catholic school chapel turned steakhouse
-
Tash Aw's 6 favorite books about forbidden love
Feature The Malaysian novelist recommends works by James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and more
-
Film reviews: Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning, Lilo & Stitch, and Final Destination: Bloodlines
Feature Tom Cruise risks life and limb to entertain us, a young girl befriends a destructive alien, and death stalks a family that resets fate's toll.