Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. 'A dazzling, vibrant, vision-changing book. I ended it wonderstruck at the fungal world. A remarkable work by a remarkable writer' - Robert Macfarlane

The 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. 

'One of those rare books that can truly change the way you see the world around you. Astounding' - Helen MacDonald, author of H Is for Hawk * 'Reads like an adventure story . . . wondrous . . . beguilingly weaves together lived experience and scientific research' - Sunday Times * 'Brilliant . . . entrancing . . . when we look closely [at fungi], we meet large, unsettling questions . . . Merlin Sheldrake . . . carries us easily into these questions with ebullience and precision . . . challenging some of our deepest assumptions . . . A 'door-opener' book is one with a specialist subject in which it finds pathways leading everywhere . . . Sheldrake's book is a very fine example' - Guardian * 'Mind-boggling . . . [Sheldrake] is nothing if not a participatory researcher into his subject and one with a winning sense of humour . . . it might be a good time to give thanks for this humble lifeform's effect on our lives . . . It's tempting . . . to see fungi as the biological model for a better world' - Telegraph