How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
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Average rating4.5
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 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. 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 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
Reviews with the most likes.
This is without a doubt the best read in a while and I recommend this to anyone with a bit of interest in nature. It's great because of three things. First, it's a great introduction into the little-known but perhaps most important organisms on our planet: fungi. You can't imagine how incredibly interesting this stuff is. Second, it relates the complexity and systemic nature to so many other parts of our lives and the world that surrounds us. And third, it is incredibly well written. Great use of language, great anecdotes. Fantastic!
I thought the weirdness of fungi would be more intriguing. More than anything, the book illustrates our vast lack of knowledge about fungi. Not for me.
If you go with the flow of not remembering which latin term or name refers to what, you can still be amazed at what you can learn. I especially liked chapter 7 and the fungal computer chips.