Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures

‘A dazzling vibrant vision-changing book. I ended it wonderstruck at the fungal world. A remarkable work by a remarkable writer’ Robert Macfarlane author of UnderlandThe more we learn about fungi the less makes sense without them.Neither plant nor animal they are found throughout the earth the air and our bodies. They can be microscopic yet also account for the largest organisms ever recorded. They enabled the first life on land can survive unprotected in space and thrive amidst nuclear radiation. In fact nearly all life relies in some way on fungi. These endlessly surprising organisms have no brain but can solve problems and manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In giving us bread alcohol and life-saving medicines fungi have shaped human history and their psychedelic properties have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. Their ability to digest plastic explosives pesticides and crude oil is being harnessed in break-through technologies and the discovery that they connect plants in underground networks the ‘Wood Wide Web’ is transforming the way we understand ecosystems. Yet over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented. Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into a spectacular and neglected world and shows that fungi provide a key to understanding both the planet on which we live and life itself.One of those rare books that can truly change the way you see the world around you. Astounding Helen MacDonald author of H Is for Hawk Review Astonishing... It seems somehow to tip the natural world upside down ―ObserverRiveting and surprising at every turn... A sensory as well as an intellectual pleasure ―New StatesmanA true masterpiece a thrilling and fascinating insight into the living world beautifully written entertaining funny and inspiring while representing the science carefully and responsibly. I hope and trust that it will becomean instant classic -- GEORGE MONBIOTA revelation... Sheldrake engages us in a miraculous web of connections interactions and communication thatchanges the way we need to look at life the planet and ourselves -- ISABELLA TREE author of WildingFew booksblew my mind like Merlin SheldrakesEntangled Life... Not sure if Ive ever learned so much from ONE book...Essential reading. Go and get swept up in a new world -- ANDREA WULF author of The Invention of Nature About the Author Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and a writer. He received a Ph.D. in Tropical Ecology from Cambridge University for his work on underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama where he was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. He is a musician and keen fermenter. Entangled Life is his first book.www.merlinsheldrake.comFind Merlin on Twitter @MerlinSheldrakeAnd on Instagram @merlin.sheldrake