The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them. Yet they live their lives largely out of sight, and over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented.Įntangled Life is a mind-altering journey into this hidden kingdom of life, and shows that fungi are key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel and behave. The ability of fungi 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. In giving us bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history, and their psychedelic properties, which have influenced societies since antiquity, have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. They can solve problems without a brain, stretching traditional definitions of ‘intelligence’, and can manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In this captivating adventure, Merlin Sheldrake explores the spectacular and neglected world of fungi: endlessly surprising organisms that sustain nearly all living systems. Its ability to digest rock enabled the first life on land, it can survive unprotected in space, and thrives amidst nuclear radiation. It can be microscopic, yet also accounts for the largest organisms ever recorded, living for millennia and weighing tens of thousands of tonnes. Neither plant nor animal, it is found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave.In Entangled Life, the brilliant young biologist Merlin Sheldrake shows us the world from a fungal point of view, providing an exhilarating change of perspective.There is a lifeform so strange and wondrous that it forces us to rethink how life works… Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Ed Yong, author of I Contain Multitudes 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. Grand and dizzying in how thoroughly it recalibrates our understanding of the natural world. NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A brilliant 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. Shop Barnes & Noble Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake online at.

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake