The Desert Smells Like Rain

This book by Gary Nabhan was genuinely recommended once in the episodes we index, on Tim Ferriss. The people who vouched for it on air: Mark Plotkin. It comes up in conversations about addiction & recovery, consciousness, psychedelics. Every quote below is verbatim, attributed, and linked to the exact second it was said. Sourced expert opinion, not medical advice.

"Longtime residents of the sonoran desert, the Tohono O'odham people have spent centuries living off the land - a land that most modern citizens of southern Arizona consider totally inhospitable. Ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan has lived with the Tohono O'odham, long known as the Papagos, observing the delicate balance between these people and their environment. Bringing O'odham voices to the page at every turn, he writes elegantly of how they husband scant water supplies, grow crops, and utilize wild edible foods.

• “there's an excellent ethnobotanist by the name of gary nabhan very prolific but his best book my favorite is called the desert smells like rain”

  Why it counts as a recommendation: “an excellent ethnobotanist ... his best book my favorite is called the desert smells like rain”
  Mark Plotkin · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 202200:07:55

  Said during "Hamilton Morris and Dr. Mark Plotkin, Exploring the History of Psychoactive Substances and More". The episode features Hamilton Morris and Dr. Mark Plotkin: Hamilton Morris is a chemist, filmmaker, and science journalist who writes and directs the documentary series Hamilton's Pharmacopeia. Dr. Mark Plotkin is an ethnobotanist, president of the Amazon Conservation Team, and author of Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice; here he hosts and interviews Morris for his Plants of the Gods podcast. Ethnobotanist Mark Plotkin interviews chemist Hamilton Morris on the history, chemistry, and conservation of psychoactive substances.