A mind-altering adventure through the world of fungi for readers of Robert Macfarlane and Other Minds
Merlin Sheldrake is a biologist and a writer. He received a Ph.D.
in Tropical Ecology from Cambridge University for his work on
underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, where he
was a predoctoral research fellow of the Smithsonian Tropical
Research Institute. He is a research associate of the Vrije
University, Amsterdam, and sits on the advisory board of the Fungi
Foundation and the Society for the Protection of Underground
Networks.
Entangled Life is an international bestseller, winner of the Royal
Society Science Book Prize 2021 and the Wainwright Prize 2021, and
has been nominated for a host of other prizes, including the
British Book Awards Book of the Year 2021 for Narrative Non-Fiction
and the Rathbones Folio Prize 2021. Entangled Life was also
featured as Radio 4's Book of the Week and selected as a Book of
the Year in The Times, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times, New Statesman
and Time, among others. It has been translated into twenty
languages.
After this book, nothing will seem the same again . . . beautifully
written and illustrated . . . dazzling . . . reveals a world that's
both more extraordinary and more delicate than could be
imagined
*Mail on Sunday*
Riveting and surprising at every turn . . . A sensory as well as an
intellectual pleasure
*New Statesman*
Wondrous . . . Humans should consider fungi among the greatest of
earth's marvels
*Time, Books of the Year*
Mind-boggling . . . It's tempting . . . to see fungi as the
biological model for a better world
*Telegraph*
Truly astounding . . . An engrossing, captivating journey
*Spectator*
Gorgeous, intelligent, utterly absorbing . . . it expands our
world, and makes us look up from the page with renewed wonder
*Irish Times*
One of those rare books that can truly change the way you see the
world around you . . . revelatory . . . astounding . . . and
brimming with infectious joy
*HELEN MACDONALD, author of H is for Hawk*
A true masterpiece, a thrilling and fascinating insight into the
living world . . . I hope and trust that it will become an instant
classic
*GEORGE MONBIOT*
Blew my mind . . . Essential reading. Go and get swept up in a new
world
*ANDREA WULF, author of The Invention of Nature*
Astonishing . . . it's impossible to finish this book without
feeling awestruck
*ANDREW MOTION, TLS Books of the Year*
Delightful to read but also grand and dizzying in how thoroughly it
recalibrates our understanding of the natural world
*ED YONG, author of An Immense World*
Sentence after sentence stopped me short. I ended it wonderstruck
at the fungal world - the secrets of which modern science is only
now beginning to fathom - and the earth-shaking, hierarchy-breaking
implications of Sheldrake's argument. A remarkable work by a
remarkable writer
*ROBERT MACFARLANE, author of Underland*
A revelation . . . Changes the way we need to look at life, the
planet and ourselves
*ISABELLA TREE, author of Wilding*
Wonderfully written . . . surprising . . . The best science writing
invites people to view the world around them in a new way, and
Entangled Life is a perfect example
*BRIAN COX*
This is a book that, by virtue of the power of its writing, shifts
your sense of the human . . . It will inspire a generation
*MICHAEL POLLAN (Bay Area Book Festival, 2020)*
I have been working on and reading and writing about fungi for a
decade. And yet, nearly every page of this book contained either an
observation so interesting or a turn of phrase so lovely that I was
moved to slow down, stop, and reread . . . This book rocked me into
remembering that nature, especially fungal nature, is big and
encompassing and creative and destructive. It reminded me that
fungi are, like the Universe, sublime
*Science*
A magical journey deep into the roots of Nature by an expert
storyteller . . . a must-read for citizen scientists hoping to make
a positive difference on this sacred planet we share
*PAUL STAMETS, author of Mycelium Running*
Reading this book, I felt surrounded by a web of wonder. The
natural world is more fantastic than any fantasy, so long as you
have the means to perceive it. This book provides the means
*JARON LANIER, author of Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social
Media Accounts Right Now*
You may never look at fungi in the same way . . . an eye-opening
exploration of this mysterious taxonomic kingdom . . . a journey
into an untapped world. It is both a wonderful collection of fungal
feats . . and a personal account of Sheldrake's experiences with
these miraculous organisms
*New Scientist*
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
*Guardian*
A joy . . . a captivating trip into the weird and wonderful
mycorrhizal world around us - and inside us . . . full of startling
revelations
*Daily Mail*
The oddest and most uplifting book . . . It is, to say the least,
rare to find such a vast area of life on Earth - fungi - about
which one knows almost nothing, and which gives promise of being so
important to human life during our next century
*New Statesman Books of the Year*
If you had told me a book about fungi would be both enthralling and
completely mind-blowing, I wouldn't have believed you. And yet.
Dazzlingly good
*INDIA KNIGHT, Sunday Times*
A triumph and a thing of vast beauty
*TOM HODGKINSON, The Idler*
Fungi are everywhere, and Merlin Sheldrake is an ideal guide to
their mysteries. He's passionate, deeply knowledgeable and a
wonderful writer
*ELIZABETH KOLBERT, author of Under A White Sky*
Deeply engaging and constantly surprising . . . the magic of
mushrooms is not merely mind-expanding . . . it might expand the
very concept of mind
*Prospect*
As hard to put down as a thrilling detective novel, and one of the
best works of popular science writing that I have enjoyed in
years
*DENNIS MCKENNA, author (with Terence McKenna) of Psilocybin: Magic
Mushroom Grower’s Guide*
It is impossible to put this book down. Entangled Life provides a
window into the mind-boggling biology and fascinating cultures
surrounding fungal life, as well as fungi’s innumerable uses in
materials, medicine and ecology. Sheldrake asks us to consider a
life-form that is radically alien to ours, yet vibrant and lively
underfoot
*HANS ULRICH OBRIST*
This is not just for mushroom-heads - it is science at its most
uplifting
*The Times*
Playful, strange, intensely philosophical ... Until very recently,
human knowledge of this most mysterious lifeform, neither plant nor
animal, has been extremely limited. This is astounding, given ...
their seismic impact on life on earth ... [Sheldrake's] central
vision of the interconnectedness of all life-forms feels
shiveringly prescient'
*Telegraph*
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