Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He links four fundamental human desires–sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control–with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings and how the relationship has been mutually beneficial.