NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “brilliant [and] entrancing” (The Guardian) journey into the hidden lives of fungi—the great connectors of the living world—and their astonishing and intimate roles in human life, with the power to heal our bodies, expand our minds, and help us address our most urgent environmental problems.
“Grand and dizzying in how thoroughly it recalibrates our understanding of the natural world.”—Ed Yong, author of An Immense World ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR—Time, BBC Science Focus, The Daily Mail, Geographical, The Times, The Telegraph, New Statesman, London Evening Standard, Science Friday
When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave.
In the first edition of this mind-bending book, Sheldrake introduced us to this mysterious but massively diverse kingdom of life. This exquisitely designed volume, abridged from the original, features more than one hundred full-color images that bring the spectacular variety, strangeness, and beauty of fungi to life as never before.
Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They are metabolic masters, earth makers, and key players in most of life’s processes. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms—and our relationships with them—are changing our understanding of how life works.
Winner of the Wainwright Prize, the Royal Society Science Book Prize, and the Guild of Food Writers Award • Shortlisted for the British Book Award • Longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize
Entangled Life is a deeply interesting and layman accessible survey course on the ubiquitous fungi surrounding us by Dr. Merlin SheldrakeDr. Merlin Sheldrake. Due out 12th May from Random House, it's 368 pages and will be available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
The layout is logical and easy to follow. Beginning by defining the characteristics of fungi (not just mushrooms!) the author carefully builds up to larger interconnections and the roles fungi and fungal systems carry out in their respective ecosystems. It was surprisingly easy for me (a non-mycologist) to follow, and felt at times like an engaging narrative as the very best nature/science writing does. It's richly footnoted and full of links and bibliography resources for further reading. There is also a charming amount of poetic whimsy and philosophy encapsulated in the author's prose. It's a pleasant and heady mix and I enjoyed it very much. He even includes a short list of his musical inspirations in the acknowledgements and it was a lot like looking at my own work playlists and it made me smile (in a fellow-feeling nerd manner, as one does).
Educational and edifying without being stodgy or tedious, I learned a lot and came away from the book with a much deeper appreciation of the finely tuned and wondrously interconnected web of life encompassing all of us. I would absolutely recommend this one to fans of science/nature writing, and especially to fans of Stephen Jay Gould and similar.
Five stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
