Entangled Life (2020)
Entangled Life is a 2020 botany book written by Merlin Sheldrake.
Merlin Sheldrake, a biologist who studies fungi, argues that they run more of the living world than we tend to notice. Fungi break rock into soil and wood into compost, thread through plant roots to trade nutrients across what researchers nickname the wood wide web, and shape human life from bread and beer to penicillin. Sheldrake follows truffle hunters, tastes his way through fermentation, and reports from labs where fungi digest plastic and crude oil. His prose stays curious and precise, alert to how strange these organisms become once you look closely. A field guide to a kingdom hiding in plain sight.
Quick answers
What is Entangled Life about?
Merlin Sheldrake, a biologist who studies fungi, argues that they run more of the living world than we tend to notice. Fungi break rock into soil and wood into compost, thread through plant roots to trade nutrients across what researchers nickname the wood wide web, and shape human life from bread and beer to penicillin. Sheldrake follows truffle hunters, tastes his way through fermentation, and reports from labs where fungi digest plastic and crude oil. His prose stays curious and precise, alert to how strange these organisms become once you look closely. A field guide to a kingdom hiding in plain sight.
When was Entangled Life published?
Entangled Life was published in 2020.
Who made Entangled Life?
Entangled Life was written by Merlin Sheldrake.
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Entangled Life in our writing
- Companion guide: Killer Plants & Botanical Horror
A few thoughts on Entangled Life
The natural companion is the documentary Fantastic Fungi, which turns the wood wide web and time-lapse mushroom growth into something you can watch unfold. For the darker flip side of Merlin Sheldrake's fascination, The Last of Us imagines a parasitic fungus that jumps to humans, taking the real biology of mind-controlling cordyceps somewhere far more frightening.