astrangewind's review against another edition
informative
relaxing
medium-paced
4.25
An all-around lovely read, Herbalist's Primer is as beautiful as it is informative. The Plant Guide is incredibly thorough, covering such topics as the culinary, medicinal, and magical uses; toxic parts of the plant, if any; where the plant lives; what the plant looks like; other common names of the plant; and more. Accompanying these descriptions are illustrations - drawn by the author herself - of relevant parts of the plant. The Plant Guide contains information on 100 plants, but that's not all the book has to offer.
Before even getting into the Plant Guide, Herbalist's Primer provides information on common terms encountered in herbalism and descriptions (and drawings!) of plant habits, leaf shapes, stem types, flower types, etc. The book also includes how to cultivate, grow, harvest, and store the herbs in your own garden; recipes for various culinary, medicinal, and magical tinctures, wines, soaps, oils, and anything else you could think of; indices which alternatively organize plants by their medicinal uses, magical and astrological correlations, and climate; a primer on botanical Latin; floral symbolism; plant generation tables for a TTRPG or really any fantasy setting; and references that offer even more information about each listed plant and corresponding them to their sources. I could not have even imagined a more complete guide to herbalism, especially as it pertains to world-building. I've already used some of the plant generation tables for a TTRPG I'm running, and I suspect I will reference this book frequently as the campaign continues.
The organization of the book, which utilizes two columns per page, plenty of illustrations, and a good mix of symbolism and text, is like candy for my AuDHD brain; it's easy and enjoyable to read without being just huge blocks of text. I also found myself enjoying the author's bitter hatred of the Ancient Greek god Apollo, her debunking of various Christianity-and-plant-related myths, her anti-colonialism, and her generally amusing voice.
While I did find this book very informative, I find some of the messages included in this book to be irresponsible. The author does make the claim that this book is intended to be fiction, which I assume resolves her of legal and moral culpability should someone try a recipe and poison themself, but I believe that's only mentioned in the very introductory pages, which most people would probably skip. It's also listed on Storygraph as nonfiction. The author does point out the plants that have ever been used for medicinal purposes but are poisonous, and so recommends against considering using them; however, in the recipes, some of those meant to be ingested which contain poisonous parts are not labelled as such. I also get a little nervous when people present magical occurrences as fact, unless the book is very clearly fiction (and not a fictional guide that could be mistaken for nonfiction). To the author's credit, she does not include any information about curses, hexes, or any magical uses that could hurt someone or force them to do something against their will, does not provide information on how to extract or use the poisons in toxic plants, and points out where any medicinal or magical uses have no basis in science.
Additionally, when people write books or any other informational source about cultivating a garden, I feel like I have to pipe in about the irresponsibility of planting a garden with random non-native plants. The author mentions - exactly once - that the reader should prefer native herbs over non-native, but she loses that thread pretty quickly. On the off-chance that anyone reads this: planting plants that aren't native to your area is bad for the environment. So please do additional research before deciding you want a garden full of mint.
A minor note, but the author of this book does do freelance editing work, which I find surprising, given the number of spelling and grammatical mistakes present in this book. It didn't take me out of the book entirely, but it happened often enough for me to notice it. It did make a few sentences difficult to understand, but overall the spelling and grammar is quite good, and I was able to understand nearly all of the content in the book.
Before even getting into the Plant Guide, Herbalist's Primer provides information on common terms encountered in herbalism and descriptions (and drawings!) of plant habits, leaf shapes, stem types, flower types, etc. The book also includes how to cultivate, grow, harvest, and store the herbs in your own garden; recipes for various culinary, medicinal, and magical tinctures, wines, soaps, oils, and anything else you could think of; indices which alternatively organize plants by their medicinal uses, magical and astrological correlations, and climate; a primer on botanical Latin; floral symbolism; plant generation tables for a TTRPG or really any fantasy setting; and references that offer even more information about each listed plant and corresponding them to their sources. I could not have even imagined a more complete guide to herbalism, especially as it pertains to world-building. I've already used some of the plant generation tables for a TTRPG I'm running, and I suspect I will reference this book frequently as the campaign continues.
The organization of the book, which utilizes two columns per page, plenty of illustrations, and a good mix of symbolism and text, is like candy for my AuDHD brain; it's easy and enjoyable to read without being just huge blocks of text. I also found myself enjoying the author's bitter hatred of the Ancient Greek god Apollo, her debunking of various Christianity-and-plant-related myths, her anti-colonialism, and her generally amusing voice.
While I did find this book very informative, I find some of the messages included in this book to be irresponsible. The author does make the claim that this book is intended to be fiction, which I assume resolves her of legal and moral culpability should someone try a recipe and poison themself, but I believe that's only mentioned in the very introductory pages, which most people would probably skip. It's also listed on Storygraph as nonfiction. The author does point out the plants that have ever been used for medicinal purposes but are poisonous, and so recommends against considering using them; however, in the recipes, some of those meant to be ingested which contain poisonous parts are not labelled as such. I also get a little nervous when people present magical occurrences as fact, unless the book is very clearly fiction (and not a fictional guide that could be mistaken for nonfiction). To the author's credit, she does not include any information about curses, hexes, or any magical uses that could hurt someone or force them to do something against their will, does not provide information on how to extract or use the poisons in toxic plants, and points out where any medicinal or magical uses have no basis in science.
Additionally, when people write books or any other informational source about cultivating a garden, I feel like I have to pipe in about the irresponsibility of planting a garden with random non-native plants. The author mentions - exactly once - that the reader should prefer native herbs over non-native, but she loses that thread pretty quickly. On the off-chance that anyone reads this: planting plants that aren't native to your area is bad for the environment. So please do additional research before deciding you want a garden full of mint.
A minor note, but the author of this book does do freelance editing work, which I find surprising, given the number of spelling and grammatical mistakes present in this book. It didn't take me out of the book entirely, but it happened often enough for me to notice it. It did make a few sentences difficult to understand, but overall the spelling and grammar is quite good, and I was able to understand nearly all of the content in the book.
decembera's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
4.0
A gorgeous tome full of detailed information and beautiful illustrations.
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