This full-throttle memoir is a window on the exploits that underpin the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew . . . reveals the rare mix of zeal and patience needed to hunt vanishing plants

Impressive, gripping and important . . . Some 30,000 plants have recorded uses for humans. Most people, the messiah preaches, are blind to these everyday miracles. This book will teach them to see

For anyone who might have considered plants dull stuff, Mr. Magdalena delivers a thrilling and inspirational account of adventures in the botanical world.

In a world whose ecology is changing so fast, only a special kind of obsessive would concern himself with saving endangered plant species. That's Magdalena... who recounts adventures that have taken him from the Amazon to the jungles of Mauritius on a quest to preserve as much flora as he can.

An engaging piece of work

Eye-popping... The Plant Messiah reads like a detective novel. [This] is a thrillingly uplifting book. There is a beguiling energy to his prose that clearly he has in person

Botany, on its face, doesn't sound particularly thrilling. This book will change your mind

An entertaining, planterly romp around the world and a glimpse inside one of the world's great botanical institutions from this Kew botanist

[I]t is fascinating to follow Magdalena as he travels from remote Australian billabongs full of rare water lilies to the dry forests of western Peru, where the last gnarled huarango trees grow in the shadow of the Andes. But the greater accomplishment of The Plant Messiah is the compelling case that Magdalena makes from caring about plants in general.

Carlos Magdalena is Kew's codebreaker

Carlos is an inspiration to me. He's the perfect spokesperson for the plants of the world

Carlos has been able to achieve things with plants that no one else can do

He has the uncanny ability to bring plants back from the brink of extinction

Brian Merchant has written a fascinating biography of the iPhone, the most important single product ever created. If you’ve ever looked at the glowing screen in your hand and wondered where the hell it came from, this book provides rich, unexpected, and unusually sophisticated answers.

Compressing decades of competitive invention and behind-the-screen intrigue, Brian Merchant looks deep into the black mirror of the iPhone to tell us the prehistory—and cultural future—of Apple’s addictive device. This is the true science fiction of our time: how everyday experience was reinvented by a gadget.