New Swedish Books. Spring 2016 1
SPRING 2016 ELIN UNNES THE HERBARIUM NATUR & KULT
UR RIGHTS: BENNET AGENCY The Herbarium That plants enjoy being talked to is well known – on account of the carbon dioxide that we exhale, photosynthesis and so on. But do the plants actually listen to what we say? Are they perhaps even able to read our minds? These are the kind of crazy issues and arguments that the appreciative reader faces in Elin Unnes’ non-fiction book The Herbarium, with its subtitle: ‘Plants for meals, magic and medicine’. Each of the book’s four chapters, introduced by evocative aura photographs of the plants in question, are devoted to all kinds of delicious, healing, poisonous and wild plants. All within an enjoyable, well-written and unrestrained mix of growing guide, recipe book and odd bits and pieces, a mix that non-fiction writing isn’t particularly abundant with. The fact that Unnes is also a rock music journalist, a magazine editor and a blogger is only to her advantage. 17 Photo: Calle Stoltz