The recap
Fungi are everywhere, in soil, in our bodies, in bread and beer, yet most of their lives unfold out of sight. Merlin Sheldrake, a biologist who has spent years researching fungal networks, sets out to bring that hidden kingdom into view. He explores how threadlike mycelium probes its surroundings and solves problems without anything like a brain, how fungi form partnerships with plants and algae, how they have shaped the planet's ecosystems, and how they might help with challenges from pollution to greener materials. He also wanders into stranger territory, including fungi that steer the behavior of insects, the mind-altering chemistry of certain mushrooms and the curious economics of truffles. Throughout, Sheldrake keeps asking what these organisms reveal about our tidy categories of individual, intelligence and even life itself. His writing is playful, curious and openly personal, and he is happy to make himself part of the experiment. The result leaves you looking at a forest floor, or a loaf of bread, in a completely new way.
Why read it
For nature lovers, gardeners, cooks and anyone who enjoys having familiar ideas turned upside down. It is especially good for readers who like science told with personality and a sense of play.
Fun facts
- 01
It won both the 2021 Royal Society Science Book Prize and the 2021 Wainwright Prize for global conservation writing.
- 02
When the book arrived from the printers, Sheldrake dampened a copy, seeded it with oyster mushroom mycelium, let the fungus digest the pages and then ate the mushrooms that sprouted, joking that the fungus had fully metabolized the text.
- 03
A sound ecologist, Michael Prime, recorded the fungus's bioelectrical activity as it consumed the book.
- 04
It was also shortlisted for the British Book Awards Book of the Year and the Rathbones Folio Prize, and an illustrated edition with more than 100 color images followed in 2023.
