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

If you appreciate conservation of trees this is a very interesting & informative book to buy and study. This book weaves such an amazing story that the educated have trouble comprehending the process!!! It is a fascinating description revealing unimaginable cooperation between trees and the underground network —to explain —the trees communicate with the under ground tendrils of other trees and actually communicates with them in tending to BABY trees! Fantastic!!!💝👍🤪🥴

I bought Entangled Life for my high schooler, who was researching mycelium🍄, after seeing it repeatedly recommended by business and academic researchers and experts as a “must-read and keep.” It absolutely lives up to that reputation. The book does a great job of explaining complex fungal science in a clear, engaging way without talking down to the reader. My teenager came away with a much deeper understanding of how fungi work, from mycelium networks in soil to how fungi interact with plants, animals, and ecosystems, and it sparked a lot of good questions and ideas for school projects. I even read it myself, and what I like most is that it balances solid science with real stories and examples, so it never feels dry. It shows fungi not as a niche topic, but as something that quietly shapes our world, our food, our environment, and even how we think about life itself. This is one of those books that is useful for a research project today and worth keeping on the shelf for years, for both students and adults who like to understand how the world works.

All about fungi written with entertaining details.

How rich our world is because of fungi and yeast. The examples of connection helps me appreciate my connectedness to the earth and everything on it.

One of the most beautifully written science nonfiction books I’ve read in a long while. Really educational, insight, and not too dense or arduous. Lyrical and poet. Learned so much. I didnt know much or cared about fungi before and yet I was really taken by the subject matter.

Absolutely loved this book! While other reviewers bemoan Sheldrake apparently 'thinking fungi will solve all the worlds problems' or 'the repetitive writing' or 'the praise of psilocybin without stating the dark side', I found the book riveting. The fact that we don't know exactly what fungi do or how they do it, that we don't understand the relationships involved, is exactly why this branch of life on our planet is so fascinating. Sheldrake opens the door but lets us decide how we want to walk through it. Definitely worth reading!

I must admit I am a stickler for good writing. Whether it’s a novel or nonfiction, I relish a writer’s ability to put ideas into well-written words. British writers seem especially adept at writing English, just as British actors seem so adept at acting in English. Partly it may be learned growing up there or maybe schools there expect a higher level of writing. In any case, this young man has well earned my praise for his book as well his well-deserved professorial appointment and skill in scientific research. At a young age he’s already at the top! This is not my field of study, but no matter how ignorant you might be in biology or fungi, I guarantee you will find him easy to follow and you’ll come to appreciate how valuable and necessary are fungi to the life of a forest or a field or anywhere really. Our earth is now at risk and fungi play a vital role - as you will come to learn. Read it!

In the spirit of books like “Underland” by Robert MacFarlane (which actually features Merlin Sheldrake in his mycological splendor), “Entangled Life,” much like the dwarves arriving at Bilbo’s house, brashly pulls you, the reader, out on a rough-and-tumble adventure that engages the senses like few literary works. You’ll quickly find yourself sweaty, running alongside truffle dogs in the in the Italian countryside, brambles scratching your arms, or as a child, immersed in a giant pile of leaves, the moist scent of decomposition saturating your nostrils as you burrow down to the interface where leaves meet the earth, writhing with worms. In his introduction, using the language of his friend and mentor David Abram, Sheldrake diffracts his narrative through the prism of phenomenology. “Our perceptions work in large part by expectations. It takes less cognitive effort to make sense of the world using preconceived images updated with a small amount of new sensory information than to constantly form entirely new perceptions from scratch…Tricked out of our expectations, we fall back on our senses." On first glance, you might think that this is a book about fungi. And in a way, it is—as much as you might say that an oil painting is about paint and canvas. And yet, just like the painter, Sheldrake uses his medium of mycelium to illustrate not just the qualities of a natural kingdom, but to paint the icon of a new paradigm. In the world of “Entangled Life,” Sheldrake’s portraits dissolve the veil that normally crisply define the thresholds of individual organisms. Given that your corporeal subsistence as a human is reliant on yeasts (a form of fungi), both to maintain your microbiome, and to pre-digests your food, where do you end, and where does the fungal kingdom begin? Given that trees are unable to access the water and nutrients they need to thrive without mycelial networks, is it useful to refer to an individual tree as an organism, or must we expand our definition to include its fungal partners? To use the terminology of J. G. Bennett, maybe even the concept of individuality begins only at the scale of the species. Sheldrake has PhD in ecology, and relies upon a scientific epistemology to construct and buttress his rhetoric. And yet where much of science hones in at the order of mechanism, to the degree that we lose the forrest in the trees, Sheldrake employs science in a way that invites in our somatic selves and leaves us awed by the synergies dancing our eyes and branching beneath our feet. Like the effects of the psilocybin mushrooms which Sheldrake describes, this book can serve as a portal through our drab mental models into the vibrant, bustling, sonorous, and pungent world that has been longing for our attention.

As someone who has always been fascinated by the hidden machinery of the natural world, picking up Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures felt less like reading a book and more like embarking on a vital expedition. I came to the book with a deep interest in the micro-level living world, and what I found was a profound, paradigm-shifting account of how fungi—this vast, silent kingdom—doesn't just influence our lives, but fundamentally is our life. What immediately captivated me, beyond the sheer scale of the subject matter, was Sheldrake’s genius for storytelling. The book is written not as a dry scientific treatise, but as a series of utterly engrossing narratives. The author possesses a rare ability to translate complex biological processes, like fungal networks communicating across continents or spores surviving in the most extreme environments, into compelling, almost mythical tales. He makes the mundane, like the mycelial mat under our feet, feel like an infinitely intricate neural network waiting to be deciphered. This narrative flair kept me engaged, making the educational experience feel personal and exciting, like a whispered secret about the nature of reality. The core reason I loved this book is how forcefully it enlarges our worldview. Before reading it, I understood the concept of ecology intellectually, but Sheldrake's work forces a meaningful, visceral change in perspective. Before diving in, I thought I knew the basics of fungi. Yet, the revelation that the largest organism on Earth is a single fungal colony—the massive Armillaria ostoyae in Oregon—was a fact I simply did not know, and it completely shattered my previous, limited perspective on life's architecture. It challenges the notion of individual autonomy, showing how all life, from plants to humans, is stitched together by fungal threads. Suddenly, my life felt less like an independent existence and more like a participant in a vast, subterranean, biochemical collaboration. One quote that deeply resonated with me was Sheldrake’s description of the mycelial networks as 'nature’s internet,' constantly trading, sharing, and reacting. He writes, “Life is a relationship, not a possession.” This simple, elegant sentence serves as the book's thesis, transforming the way I view every organism—including myself—not as an independent unit, but as a node in an immense, ancient web. The book is a powerful argument against a purely anthropocentric view, revealing that we are not the masters of our environment, but rather integrated components within a much larger, fungal-driven system. The benefits of knowing this world, as the book illuminates, are enormous. Fungi hold solutions to pressing global issues—from being nature’s original recyclers, breaking down pollutants, to their potential in developing new medicines and sustainable food sources. I also found his discussion on their chemical power incredibly impactful. As Sheldrake notes, “Fungi are metabolic wizards. They can eat anything.” This immediately highlights the practical benefits of studying this kingdom, suggesting solutions for everything from plastic waste to global resource scarcity. The book doesn't just ask us to look at fungi; it demands we look at ourselves differently. By highlighting the interconnectedness, the book suggests a path toward more meaningful changes in our own world view—one that prioritizes cooperation, decomposition, and symbiotic relationships over relentless, isolated competition. Entangled Life is ultimately a powerful invitation to humility. It makes the world feel infinitely stranger and richer than I ever imagined. By placing the mycelial network at the center of the story of life, Merlin Sheldrake delivers a book that is not just essential reading for biologists, but for anyone seeking a more profound, interconnected understanding of their place on Earth. It’s a book that truly gets under your skin, in the best possible way.

un libro davvero interessante, stupendo

This book arrived much earlier than I thought it would and in perfect condition. What is more important is that this book is amazing! I have not finished it yet, but every day I find out something cool from it..I cannot recommend this enough...

Aanrader voor wie interesse heeft in ecologie

I purchased this book after reading a positive review in an issue of the journal Science. It is well written and an excellent introduction to the world of fungi. Each chapter covers a particular type of fungus or characteristic (ex.: truffles, hyphae networks, lichens, pharmacological properties, symbiosis with plants and trees, etc.). This is all done by the author narrating his work in the field and his encounters with various researchers or fungi enthusiasts. It is easy to read and captivating. I strongly recommend to those who want to know more about the well hidden but wonderful world of fungi, not a plant but a kingdom by itself.