Michael Pollan Success Story

Childhood

Michael Pollan was born on February 6, 1955 in Long Island, New York into a Jewish family. His father Stephen Pollan is an author and financial consultant and his mother, Corky Pollan is a columnist. Pollan did his B.A. in English from Bennington College and M.A. in English from Columbia University. He has a sister.

Career

Michael Pollan has authored five books; Second Nature, A Place of My Own, The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and In Defense of Food. He writes primarily on agriculture and food. ‘The Omnivore's Dilemma’ and In Defense of Food feature on the national bestseller lists. Pollan’s book, The Botany of Desire won the ‘Borders Original Voices Award’ in the category of the ‘best non-fiction work 2001’. It was acknowledged as the ‘best book of the year’ by Amazon and the American Booksellers Association. Pollan’s work, The Omnivore's Dilemma was selected among the five ‘best non-fiction books’ of the year in 2006. The book won James Beard Foundation’s ‘best food writing’ award for 2007. The Omnivore's Dilemma was used by the University of Pennsylvania for its 2007 ‘reading project’ and by the Washington State University as the ‘book of choice’ for its Common Reading Programme.

Pollan wrote the book, A Place of My Own: The Education of an Amateur Builder in 1998. 10 years down the line, the book was released again with a different title; A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams. His books, In Defense of Food and Food Rules: An Eater's Manual were launched in 2008 and 2009 respectively. In Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation was published in 2013. A year later, Pollan wrote the foreword of the book, The Pollan Family Table, a cook-book on healthy eating.

Michael Pollan writes extensively for prestigious journals; New York Times Magazine and the social psychology magazine, ‘Greater Good’. He was an executive editor of the Harper Magazine. Pollan is the ‘Knight Professor’ of Journalism at UC Berkeley.

Pollan featured in the documentaries; ‘King Corn’ and ‘Food’, in 2007 and 2008 respectively. He was an advisor for the documentary ‘Food’. Pollan gave interviews for the documentaries; ‘Queen of the Sun: What are the bees telling us?’ and ‘Vanishing of the Bees’.

Recognitions

Michael Pollan was conferred the ‘Reuters World Conservation Union Global Award’ in environmental journalism. He won the ‘James Beard Foundation Award’ for best magazine series 2003 and the ‘Genesis Award’ by the Humane Society of the United States. Pollan’s works were compiled and feature in the Norton Book of Nature Writing, Best American Essays, Best American Science Writing and The Animals: Practicing Complexity.

John Robbins Interviews Michael Pollan