How Flowers Made Our World
Details
What I learned from this book: "I'm ... a clumsy pseudo-fungus", but this I already knew (and this opinion was affirmed to me by at least one ex).
The book is How Flowers Made Our World: The Story of Nature's Revolutionaries by David George Haskell, and argues for importance of the flowering plants in the evolution of modern life on earth.
It is neither technical nor academic, while also avoiding being too autobiographical or breeezy. As is typical of pop-sci books of this ilk, you follow the author around to various places, people, events, as he drops bits of science on you (for example, as he's planting eel grass in the Forth of Firth, he explains, "One of the great advantages of flowers is the maternal care they provide.").
Note that the date and location may both change.
Ps. The image used is Series I White & Blue Flower Shapes (1919) by Georgia O'Keeffe
