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.

Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave. 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. When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. 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 “Grand and dizzying in how thoroughly it recalibrates our understanding of the natural world.”-Ed Yong, author of An Immense World 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.The book is a call to engage with fungi on their level.NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Although Entangled Life never lapses into polemics or preaching, the book has an evangelical message all the same.

Sheldrake is stylistically impressive, too-he can be charmingly poetic, using metaphors and analogies to communicate meaning. But ultimately the book remains grounded in empirical evidence. He embraces the sort of fantastic speculations that come with the territory, as when a childhood memory of Terence McKenna, the ethnobotanist, mystic, and family friend, segues to McKenna’s fantastic theories about the extraterrestrial origins of fungi. Sheldrake also shows how culture shapes scientific knowledge. It emphasizes the openness and indeterminacy of mycology, a vastly understudied field, through honest depictions of scientists in the lab and field trying to puzzle out fungi’s unexplained behavior. His book has a host of other strengths as well. Sheldrake carefully explains the details in clever, affable prose. While fungi are easy sources of wonder, getting to the wonder means understanding the basics, which can be arcane in the case of fungi.

Entangled fungi