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.