Michael Pollan – författare

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER'Big, generous, illuminating and beautifully written' John Banville, Financial TimesFrom the best-selling author of How to Change Your Mind, a pioneering search for consciousness in the brain and beyond A World Appears is the story of the quest to solve the greatest mystery in nature: consciousness. How does it feel to be you with your own personal feelings, thoughts and experiences? Every one of us is intimately familiar with consciousness, but no one knows how – or why – it came to be that three pounds of grey matter can generate a subjective point of view.The early 1990s marked the birth of a new science of consciousness, based on the assumption that the phenomenon could be explained in terms of brain activity, but that effort is faltering, and wilder ideas, such as panpsychism, are now getting a hearing. Indeed, there is now reason to doubt that ‘objective science’ as we have known it since Galileo has the right tools to plumb first-person experience. A World Appears takes Michael Pollan from the laboratories where scientists are searching for the neural correlates of consciousness to encounters with philosophers and novelists and Buddhist monks, whom he finds have just as much to teach us about consciousness, if not more.A story that begins in a brain lab in Seattle ends, of all places, in a cave in the mountains of New Mexico, where the author discovers that explaining consciousness may be less urgent than learning to practice it in our everyday lives.

THE NO. 1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, NOW A MAJOR NEW NETFLIX SERIES'Reminds us that the mind is the greatest mystery in the universe' Yuval Noah Harari, Guardian, Books of the YearCould psychedelic drugs change our worldview? Join Michael Pollan on a journey to the frontiers of the human mind.Diving deep into an extraordinary world - from shamans and magic mushroom hunts to the pioneering labs mapping our brains - and putting himself forward as a guinea-pig, Michael Pollan has written a remarkable history of psychedelics and a compelling portrait of the new generation of scientists fascinated by the implications of these drugs. How to Change Your Mind is a report from what could very well be the future of consciousness.'A sweeping and often thrilling chronicle of the history of psychedelics, all interwoven with Pollan's adventures as a psychedelic novice. This is a serious work of history and science, but also one in which the author, under the influence of toad venom, becomes convinced he's giving birth to himself' Oliver Burkeman, Guardian'A mind-altering book ... full of transformations' Richard Godwin, Evening Standard'An irresistible blend of history, research and personal experience. In terms of the psychedelic wave, the book is the big kahuna, the Big Bang moment for a movement that is gathering force' John McKenna, Irish Times'Entertaining and engrossing' Paul Laity, Financial Times'Deeply absorbing, wise and beautifully written' Mick Brown, Literary Review'An astounding book' Andrew Sullivan, New York Magazine

A farmer cultivates genetically modified potatoes so that a customer at McDonald's half a world away can enjoy a long, golden french fry. A gardener plants tulip bulbs in the autumn and in the spring has a riotous patch of colour to admire. Two simple examples of how humans act on nature to get what we want. Or are they? What if those potatoes and tulips have evolved to gratify certain human desires so that humans will help them multiply? What if, in other words, these plants are using us just as we use them? In blending history, memoir and superb science writing, Pollan tells the story of four domesticated species - the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato. All four plants are integral to our everyday lives and Pollan demonstrates how each has thrived by satisfying one of humankind's most basic desires. Weaving fascinating anecdote and accessible science, Pollan takes the reader on an absorbing journey through the landscape of botany and desire. It is a journey that will change the way we think about our place in nature

In twenty short books, Penguin brings you the classics of the environmental movement.Food Rules, Michael Pollan's wise and witty critique of the western industrialised diet, distils the wisdom of history and traditional cultures to three simple rules: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

Michael Pollan's In Defence of Food is a simple invitation to junk the science, ditch the diet and instead rediscover the joys of eating well.This book is a celebration of food. By food, Michael Pollan means real, proper, simple food - not the kind that comes in a packet, or has lists of unpronounceable ingredients, or that makes nutritional claims about how healthy it is. More like the kind of food your great-grandmother would recognize.By following a few pieces of advice (Eat at a table - a desk doesn't count. Don't buy food where you'd buy your petrol!), you will enrich your life and your palate, and enlarge your sense of what it means to be healthy and happy. It's time to fall in love with food again.'Brings home the real wonder of eating food' Sunday Times'Instantly makes redundant all diet books and 99 per cent of discussions around healthy eating ... Sense, at last'Daily Mail'Pollan invites us to grab our pots and pans and cook some real food for dinner'Time Out'Read this witty book for a healthier life and diet'The Times'Eminently sensible' Fay Maschler, Keynote 'A must-read ... satisfying, rich ... loaded with flavour' Sunday TelegraphFor the past twenty years, Michael Pollan has been writing about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: food, agriculture, gardens, drugs, and architecture. His most recent book, about the ethics and ecology of eating, is The Omnivore's Dilemma, named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. He is also the author of The Botany of Desire, A Place of My Own and Second Nature.

In sixty-four bite-sized pieces of advice, Michael Pollan's Food Rules tells you everything you need to know to eat healthily, dine happily and live well. Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much.Using those seven simple words as his guide, internationally-acclaimed food journalist Michael Pollan offers this indispensable handbook for anyone concerned about health and food. Sensible, easy to use and written in plain English, Food Rules is a set of memorable adages or designed to help you eat real food in reasonable amounts, gathered from a wide variety of sources: nutritionists, anthropologists, ancient cultures - and grandmothers.Whether at the supermarket, a restaurant or an all-you-can-eat buffet, this handy, pocket-size resource is the perfect manual for anyone who would like to become more mindful of the food we eat.'In more than four decades I have come across nothing more intelligent, sensible and simple to follow than these principles'The New York Times 'Instantly makes redundant all diet books and 99 per cent of discussions around healthy eating ... Sense, at last'Daily Mail, praise for In Defence of Food'Pollan invites us to grab our pots and pans and cook some real food for dinner' Time Out, praise for In Defence of Food'Read this witty book for a healthier life and diet'The Times, praise for In Defence of FoodMichael Pollan has been writing for over twenty years about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: food, agriculture, gardens, drugs, and architecture. The Omnivore's Dilemma, about the ethics and ecology of eating, was named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post. He is also the author of The Botany of Desire, A Place of My Own and Second Nature and, most recently, In Defence of Food.

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE NEW NETFLIX SERIES 'It's not often that a life-changing book falls into one's lap ... Yet Michael Pollan's Cooked is one of them.' SundayTelegraph'This is a love song to old, slow kitchen skills at their delicious best' Kathryn Huges, GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEARThe New York Times Top Five Bestseller - Michael Pollan's uniquely enjoyable quest to understand the transformative magic of cookingMichael Pollan's Cooked takes us back to basics and first principles: cooking with fire, with water, with air and with earth.Meeting cooks from all over the world, who share their wisdom and stories, Pollan shows how cooking is at the heart of our culture and that when it gets down to it, it also fundamentally shapes our lives.Filled with fascinating facts and curious, mouthwatering tales from cast of eccentrics, Cooked explores the deepest mysteries of how and why we cook.

When it comes to consciousness, there is one point scientists, philosophers and artists all agree on: that it feels like something to be ourselves. And yet, the fact that each and every one of us has a subjective experience of the world continues to be one of the greatest mysteries in nature. How is it that our mental operations are accompanied by feelings, thoughts and a sense of self? What would studying the inner life scientifically even look like?What began for Michael Pollan as a startling awareness of his own consciousness soon evolved into a deeper fascination with this strange and elusive phenomenon. In A World Appears, Pollan traces the unmapped continent that is consciousness from several radically different perspectives – scientific, philosophical, spiritual, historical and psychedelic – to see what each has to teach us about this fundamental fact of our lives.Here Pollan ventures beyond the brain labs attempting to find neural explanations for our felt reality, and discovers the latest cutting-edge advances in the field. He introduces us to plant neurobiologists studying nature’s surprisingly complex intelligence; neuroscientists and psychoanalysts attempting to engineer feeling into AI; and novelists recreating our slippery stream of consciousness.Pollan’s dazzling exploration of consciousness uncovers a world far deeper than our everyday reality – and perhaps even beyond it.

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR NEW NETFLIX SERIES, HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND'It's a trip - engrossing, eye-opening, mind altering' New Statesman 'Fascinating. Pollan is the perfect guide ... curious, careful, open minded' The GuardianOf all the many things humans rely on plants for, surely the most curious is our use of them to change consciousness: to stimulate, calm, or completely alter the qualities of our mental experience. In This Is Your Mind On Plants, Michael Pollan explores three very different drugs - opium, caffeine and mescaline - and throws the fundamental strangeness of our thinking about them into sharp relief. Exploring and participating in the cultures that have grown up around these drugs, while consuming (or in the case of caffeine, trying not to consume) them, Pollan reckons with the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants, and the equally powerful taboos.In a unique blend of history, science, memoir and reportage, Pollan shines a fresh light on a subject that is all too often treated reductively. In doing so, he proves that there is much more to say about these plants than simply debating their regulation, for when we take them into our bodies and let them change our minds, we are engaging with nature in one of the most profound ways we can. This ground-breaking and singular book holds up a mirror to our fundamental human needs and aspirations, the operations of our minds and our entanglement with the natural world.

An enhanced edition of Food Rules—beautifully illustrated and packed with additional food wisdomMichael Pollan’s Food Rules prompted a national discussion helping to change the way Americans approach eating. This new edition illustrated by celebrated artist Maira Kalman—and expanded with a new introduction and nineteen additional food rules—marks an advance in the national dialogue that Food Rules inspired. Many of the new rules, suggested by readers, underscore the central teachings of the original Food Rules, which are that eating doesn’t have to be so complicated and that food is as much about pleasure and community as it is about nutrition and health. A beautiful book to cherish and share, Food Rules guides us with humor, joy, and common sense toward a happier, healthier relationship to food.

This is an account of one man's experience in his garden. The book invites an exploration of unexamined feelings about nature and the place of society in the landscape, and what gardening has to teach about the troubled borders between nature and culture.