Friday Freebie: The Incredible Journey of Plants by Stefano Mancuso

Congratulations to Columbus Moore, winner of last week’s Friday Freebie contest: The Memory Eaters by Elizabeth Kadetsky.

This week’s contest is for The Incredible Journey of Plants by Stefano Mancuso. Perhaps you’ve been spending your quarantine life starting a little indoor garden, or maybe you just miss walking through a field of wildflowers, inhaling deeply with every other step. Either way, this richly-illustrated book about the flora in our lives should prove to be some interesting reading for you. Here’s what Salon had to say about The Incredible Journey of Plants: “A gripping series of evolutionary history vignettes about plants that have coexisted either in spite of or due to human intervention...a new perspective on that hazy term, nature.” Keep scrolling for more information on the book and how to enter the contest...

When we talk about migrations, we should study plants to understand that these phenomena are unstoppable. In the many different ways plants move, we can see the incessant action and drive to spread life that has led plants to colonize every possible environment on earth. The history of this relentless expansion is unknown to most people, but we can begin our exploration with these surprising tales, engagingly told by Stefano Mancuso. Generation after generation, using spores, seeds, or any other means available, plants move in the world to conquer new spaces. They release huge quantities of spores that can be transported thousands of miles. The number and variety of tools through which seeds spread is astonishing: we have seeds dispersed by wind, by rolling on the ground, by animals, by water, or by a simple fall from the plant, which can happen thanks to propulsive mechanisms, the swaying of the mother plant, the drying of the fruit, and much more. In this accessible, absorbing overview, Mancuso considers how plants convince animals to transport them around the world, and how some plants need particular animals to spread; how they have been able to grow in places so inaccessible and inhospitable as to remain isolated; how they resisted the atomic bomb and the Chernobyl disaster; how they are able to bring life to sterile islands; how they can travel through the ages, as they sail around the world.

If you’d like a chance at winning The Incredible Journey of Plants, simply e-mail your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line. Please include your mailing address in the body of the e-mail.

The Fine Print
One entry per person, please (or, two if you share the post—see below). Despite its name, the Friday Freebie remains open to entries until midnight on May 21 at which time I’ll draw the winning names. I’ll announce the lucky reader on May 22.

The Finer Print
If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email. Your e-mail address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

The Finest Print
Want to double your odds of winning? Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter. Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.