It is safe to say that young Merlin was steeped in both the natural world and the permeability of its boundaries from a very early age. He is a musician (there are a number of musical analogies within these pages), brewer (the lowly yeasts stimulated his first love for fungi) and son of Rupert Sheldrake, the famous parapsychologist who developed the hypothesis of morphic resonance. Sheldrake is a scientist who obtained his PhD in tropical ecology from the University of Cambridge. This well-written and well-researched book clearly demonstrates just how essential fungi are within the world that we live in, and mycophiles of all persuasions will find much to like within its pages. “Entangled Life,” first book by author Merlin Sheldrake, takes a deep dive into the science and fascination of fungus, and in the telling, makes it fun to read.

By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms-and our relationships with them-are changing our understanding of how life works.Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. They are metabolic masters, earth makers, and key players in most of life’s processes. Sheldrake’s vivid exploration takes us from yeast to psychedelics, to the fungi that range for miles underground and are the largest organisms on the planet, to those that link plants together in complex networks known as the “Wood Wide Web,” to those that infiltrate and manipulate insect bodies with devastating precision.įungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. In Entangled Life, the brilliant young biologist Merlin Sheldrake shows us the world from a fungal point of view, providing an exhilarating change of perspective. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems.

But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms.

Merlin sheldrake fungi