Entangled Life
How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
The smash-hit Sunday Times bestseller that will transform your understanding of our planet and life itself.
'Astonishing ... it seems somehow to tip the natural world upside down' Observer
'Completely mind-blowing ... reads like an adventure story' Sunday Times
*WINNER OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY BOOK PRIZE 2021*
*WINNER OF THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE FOR CONSERVATION WRITING 2021*
The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them. They can change our minds, heal our bodies and even help us avoid environmental disaster; they are metabolic masters, earth-makers and key players in most of nature's processes. In Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake takes us on a mind-altering journey into their spectacular world, and reveals how these extraordinary organisms transform our understanding of our planet and life itself.
'Dazzling, vibrant, vision-changing' Robert Macfarlane
'Urgent, astounding and necessary' Helen Macdonald
'Gorgeous!' Margaret Atwood (on Twitter)
'Wonderful' Nigella Lawson
'This book is like one surprise after another' David Byrne
'Uplifting' Jeanette Winterson
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2021*
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021*
* A Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Times, Evening Standard, Mail on Sunday, BBC Science Focus and Time Book of the Year *
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Scientist Sheldrake debuts with a revelatory look at fungi that proves their relevance to humans goes far beyond their uses in cooking. While fungi lack brains, they can process and share complicated information about food and the habitability of environments quickly and over great distances, influencing the "speed and direction of growth," in ways not yet understood, prompting Sheldrake to ask, "Can we think of their behavior as intelligent?" By discussing how fungi come together with algae to form lichens, Sheldrake touches on another question, that of "where one organism stops and another begins" in symbiotic relationships. Elsewhere, he explains how fungi were essential for the original colonization of land by plants, as they effectively served as roots for the first rootless arrivals. Meanwhile, anthropologists have postulated that, via the fermentation process, fungi may have sparked one of humankind's key transitions: "from hunter-gatherers to agriculturalists." Looking to the future, Sheldrake discusses developing uses of fungi in shipping, construction, and environmental remediation materials. In bringing all these diverse threads together, Sheldrake delivers a thoroughly enjoyable paean to a wholly different kingdom of life.
