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

366 pages

English language

Published Oct. 28, 2020

ISBN:
978-0-525-51031-4
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Goodreads:
52668915

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4 stars (4 reviews)

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 Entangled Life, the brilliant young biologist Merlin Sheldrake shows us the world from a fungal point of view, providing an exhilarating change of perspective. Sheldrake’s vivid exploration takes us from yeast to psychedelics, to the fungi that range for miles underground and are the largest organisms on the planet, to those that link plants together in complex networks known as the “Wood Wide Web,” to those that infiltrate and manipulate insect bodies with devastating precision.

Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence …

2 editions

Review of 'Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

Fascinating book about fungi, filled with wonderful tidbits of information. One tip: If it seems to you like a book of this sort should have footnotes, you're close: it has endnotes in abundance, some as long as a full page; in others words, many are substantial, not just references.

A fascinating book about fungi and its influence on life on earth (including ourselves).

4 stars

A fascinating book about fungi: how they live, their relationship with other organisms (including ourselves) and how, despite being small individually, collectively they have a major influence on the ecosystems of the world. You'll get to appreciate fungi and what researchers have been discovering about their lives. But much still remains unknown about fungi.

Chapter one looks at how fungi senses and affects it surrounds via chemical signals, or smells. Using truffles as the main example, fungi are shown to be able to trigger an animal's sense of smell when the truffle wants to be eaten, so it can reproduce. Fungi also use chemical signals to hunt for prey (nematode worms for example), to detect other fungi in the area to determine if they are friend or foe, and to reproduce by finding another compatible fungus. Chemical signals are also used by fungi and plants to sense each other and …