Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds and Shape Our Futures

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They not only partner in symbiotic relationships with over ninety percent of the world’s trees and flowering plant species, they also recycle and create humus, the fertile soil from which such flora receive their nutrition. It is both scientific with proper references and highly readable, Sheldrake’s style being entertaining as well as precise.

It is fascinating to see what parts of Epping Forest looked like a hundred years ago, and what birds and wildlife could be seen then. Shelley Evans was conservation officer for the British Mycological Society for ten years and is on the executive committee of the European council for the Conservation of Fungi and the IUCN world specialist group for fungi. They’re busy doing all sorts of things, from giving you a cold and making yogurt to eroding mountains and helping to make the air we breathe. The book focuses on the people and on how their lives are affected by the fungus, rather than on the opposite (with the author stumbling on matsutake after looking for a “culturally colorful global commodity”). A paradigm-smashing chronicle of joyous entanglement that will make you acknowledge your own entanglement in the ancient and ever-new web of being.

I have a lot of mushrooms growing around our property in Ashford, Kent and am looking for a substantial guide that is applicable to my area. Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into a spectacular and neglected world, and shows that fungi provide a key to understanding both the planet on which we live, and life itself. Beatrix studied all sorts of fungi, discovering a mushroom known as the Old Man Of The Woods, but as a female she was prohibited from presenting a scientific paper to London’s Linean Society. In this beautiful book, leading fungal biologists Professor Lynne Boddy and Dr Ali Ashby bring you closer to 300 species of mushrooms and lichens through fascinating facts, mushroom datasets, and detailed illustrations.

A captivating trip into the weird and wonderful mycorrhizal world around us – and inside us… full of startling revelations, detailed science and just enough eccentric humour to make it digestible. He is also on the editorial boards of Field Mycology, Mycological Progress, Czech Mycology, and Persoonia. An informative and accessible choice for fans of Andrea Beatty’s Ada Twist, Scientist and Kimberly Derting and Shelli R. Location maps give indications of each species' known global distribution, and specially commissioned engravings show different fruitbody forms and provide the vital statistics of height and diameter.However much we think we have understood, this book will make us realise how much we haven’t… After reading it you’ll think, ‘The world is a massively more exciting and colourful and charismatic place than I thought. There is at the top of the page a listing of family, geographical distribution (there is also a coloured world map alongside), habitat and association, growth form, abundance, spore colour and edibility. Fascinated by Fungi is an easy-to-follow introduction to a complex and largely unexplored kingdom of life and the history, mystery, facts and fiction born out of the fascinating foibles of mushrooms, toadstools and other fungi. Writing and broadcasting on wildlife and countryside topics for more than 30 years, Pat is the author of more than 20 books and hundreds of articles. Bang up-to-date, this new edition incorporates recent taxonomic name changes resulting from recent DNA analysis, together with previously common synonyms and the British Mycological Society's recommended English names of fungi species.

When you ferment alcohol, plant a plant, or just bury your hands in the soil; and whether you let a fungus into your mind, or marvel at the way that it might enter the mind of another. The lives of fungi alone are fascinating, but the questions and wider implications that Sheldrake teases out from them are often truly astounding… an engrossing, captivating journey… rigorous, comprehensive, perspective-altering… if this book is any indication, [Sheldrake] has an exciting career in not only science but also literature ahead of him. Read our reviews of the best fungi books, including Merlin Sheldrake’s award-winning Entangled Life to Aliya Whiteley’s exploration of The Secret Life of Fungi. Fungi tend to grab our attention in autumn when they produce their spectacular fruiting bodies but, for most of their life-cycle, they are hidden from view, recycling nutrients in ecosystems and generally maintaining the health of the planet.Whatever the reason for this historical mycophobia, we are currently in the midst of a dramatic cultural change of heart. There is a fungal predator, for instance, that hunts its prey with lassos, and several that set traps, including one that entices sows by releasing the pheromones of a wild boar. This may be a slight under-exaggeration, but at the time he made the book Roger was certainly no mycologist, and nor did he claim to be. Negatives: A bit messy; the fungal science is not always very clear or easy to follow; at traits, it seems the author pushes too much to make some points clear by keeping getting back to certain terms (‘salvage economy’, the concept of ‘translating’ knowledge, etc.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Britain's neglect of fungi as table delicacies has perhaps been responsible for our surprising ignorance of the natural history of such fascinating plants. Sheldrake's] rich text evokes an understanding of what it would actually be like to be a filamentous microbe. Fungi are fabulous yet dangerous, everywhere but also mysterious, sometimes edible and sometimes fatal. Condition: This book is in good condition for its age with minor jacket wear and marking, may have front inscription.A true masterpiece: a thrilling and fascinating insight into the living world, beautifully written, entertaining, funny and inspiring, while representing the science carefully and responsibly. They send information multi-directionally, they constantly evolve and adapt based on feedback from their environment, they invent new molecules to collaborate. Monks and murderers have turned mushrooms to their advantage; artists and authors have fallen for the fascination of fungi.