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The Lotus Quest
The Lotus Quest
Oct 25, 2024 5:21 AM

Author:Mark Griffiths

The Lotus Quest

The lotus is the world's most iconic flower. Galvanised by receiving seeds from a three-thousand-year-old lotus, which flowered without difficulty in an English summer, Mark Griffiths set out to track the path of this sublime plant to its home in the Lotus-Lands of Japan.

The Lotus Quest unveils a stunning vision of Japan's feudal era, as Griffiths visits shrines, ruins, gardens and wild landscapes, and meets priests and archaeologists, philosophers and anthropologists, gardeners and botanists, poets and artists, and even dines on the lotus in a Tokyo café.

Beautifully illustrated, intensely atmospheric and full of suspense, The Lotus Quest shows how the deep crimson of the lotus runs like a tracer dye, tracking the spread, fusion and fission of the world's great civilizations.

Reviews

Beautifully written and full of human drama and suspense

—— Sunday Telegraph

With masterly precision, Griffiths traces the botanical, cultural, religious and artistic lore of the lotus from Japan to Egypt to India and to the West

—— The Times

A splendid account

—— Sunday Times

Full of interesting references

—— Stephen Anderton , The Times

Fascinating

—— Sunday Times

Compelling. His spirit of intellectual adventuring is infectious

—— New Scientist

Paul Greenberg observes ... we are at a significant moment

—— Economist

Accessible and enlightening ... It's not Greenberg's way to preach; he's happier letting the facts speak for themselves

—— Observer

Required reading for anyone who eats seafood ...Greenberg is an unfailingly entertaining writer, and his book arms you with the information you need to make intelligent choices when you are confronted by the ... offerings at the fish counter

—— Atlantic

Lucid, readable ... a story well told

—— Charles Clover , Sunday Times

An elegantly composed and strikingly level-headed inquiry into our relationship with the fish we eat and the waters that sustain them

—— Tom Fort , Sunday Telegraph

A powerful case for action ... combining on-the-ground and on-the-ocean reporting from the Yukon to Greece, from the waters off New England to the Mekong Delta, along with accounts of some stirring fishing trips, Greenberg makes a powerful argument ... marvellous exploration of that contradiction, a necessary book for anyone interested in what we take from the sea to eat, and how, and why

—— Sam Sifton , Scotsman

Oren Harman's outstanding new biography of the American scientist George Price makes the case that Price's theoretical contributions to biology are among the most important of the twentieth century...Price was undoubtedly an opaque figure; Harman has approached his life with sensitivity and intelligence, providing a clearer window into this troubled mind

—— Tom Bailey , TLS

Moving biography exploring a geneticst's understanding of human selflessness

—— The Times

An energetic tale that presents not only the science but the history and politics which produced it

—— Islington Tribune
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