This Is Your Mind on Plants

"A lucid (in the sky with diamonds) look at the hows, whys, and occasional demerits of altering one's mind."

"Others might want to skip the autobiographical material and get to the information that the author has to offer about the substances he explores ..."

"A wide-ranging investigation that will interest anyone curious about consciousness-altering substances and their varying legality."

"When Pollan bridles that drug laws limit his freedom, and when he ridicules the foolishness of lumping him and his cozy garden with fearsome 'addicts' and criminals, he unintentionally reinforces this pernicious drug war logic ..."

"While his previous books may have had their critics, This Is Your Mind on Plants, places Pollan, for this reviewer at least, among those science writers — James Gleick, Marcia Angell, Harold McGee, Jared Diamond and more — who demonstrate through the night of Trumpism, QAnon and the anti-vaxx movement that the flag of scientific literacy still waves in America."

"Can we generalize from his own drama?"

"Readers of How to Change Your Mind will recognize Pollan's thoughtful and scientific approach to the subject of psychedelic drugs and altered states of consciousness."

"As with all the explorations in this spirited and informed series of quests, the results of these experiments open up as many public questions as private epiphanies."

"Pollan is a gentle, generous writer, so it is to his credit that he realises that an account of how he felt when he stopped drinking coffee for a few months was hardly likely to provide narrative drama."

"In describing his own experiences of researching the peyote cactus, Pollan adeptly handles issues of cultural insensitivity."