Entangled Life

When most of us think of mushrooms, we think of fruiting bodies with a cap and a stem. But mushrooms are so much more. They form an incredibly diverse kingdom of organisms that support almost every living system on Earth. And they are amazing. Many fungi are microscopic, but there are also those that live for thousands of years and weigh tens of thousands of tons. Without brains, fungi solve complex problems and manipulate animal behavior. Fungi give us bread, alcohol, and vital medicines. They survive in outer space, eat plastic, and their ability to digest rock made life on land possible. Fungi are everywhere, yet they usually remain out of our sight: more than 90% of their species are still undocumented.

In her fascinating book, Merlin Sheldrake, a mycologist at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, invites the reader on a journey through this hidden kingdom of life. It shows that mushrooms are key to understanding the planet we live on, and how we think, feel and behave.

The book won the Wainwright Prize for best nature text, the Royal Society of London's award for best non-fiction publication, and the British Guild of Food Writers' Award. A Sunday Times and New York Times global bestseller.