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Author: Sheldrake, Merlin

Mycology, fungi (non-medical)

Published on 3 September 2020 by Vintage Publishing (The Bodley Head Ltd) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 368 pages
240 x 162 | 724g

*THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**A NEW STATESMAN, DAILY TELEGRAPH, THE TIMES, BBC SCIENCE FOCUS, EVENING STANDARD, MAIL ON SUNDAY AND SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020*’A dazzling, vibrant, vision-changing book. I ended it wonderstruck at the fungal world. A remarkable work by a remarkable writer’ Robert MacfarlaneThe more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them.

Neither plant nor animal, they are found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. They can be microscopic, yet also account for the largest organisms ever recorded. They enabled the first life on land, can survive unprotected in space and thrive amidst nuclear radiation. In fact, nearly all life relies in some way on fungi.

These endlessly surprising organisms have no brain but can solve problems and manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In giving us bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history, and their psychedelic properties have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. Their ability 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. Yet over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented. Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into a spectacular and neglected world, and shows that fungi provide a key to understanding both the planet on which we live, and life itself.

‘Reads like an adventure story … wondrous … beguilingly weaves together lived experience and scientific research’ Sunday Times’An astonishing book that could alter our perceptions of fungi for ever. It seems somehow to tip the natural world upside down’ Observer’Dazzling … reveals a world that’s both more extraordinary and more delicate than could be imagined’ Daily Mail