Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Author: Merlin SheldrakeFirst published: 2020
non-fiction, nature, memoir
Date read: 1st Jan 2021
review
my wife always buys me a nature book for christmas, and this was her choice this year. to be fair, it wasn't much of a surprise - i'd already said i was interested in reading it. she did try to build some suspense as xmas approached: apparently, in november of 2020, there were very few copies of this book to be found on british shores. she told me, teasingly, something about brexit and coronavirus and publishers struggling to print and ship enough books to meet demand. whether any of this is true, or just some bizarre lie to throw me off her scent, i have no idea. either way, the surprise was kind of ruined, because by mid-december copies of entangled life were in the uk, and i saw a copy of it in the bookshop window the last shift she worked there.i feel like entangled life got marketed kind of weirdly. i think a lot of the press around it implied that the book largely focused on hallucinogenic and psychadelic mushrooms, and a lot of the people i spoke to about it who had heard of it (although we live in a part of the country where the population has a higher-than-average number of hippies, new agers, and recreational drug lovers) seemed to be under the impression that it was as well.
and don't get me wrong, sheldrake does address fungi with hallucinogenic properties, and it is a very interesting part of the book. sheldrake talks about a clinical trial he volunteered for, which aimed to examine the influence of lsd on cognitive ability, problem solving, and creativity.
the expiriment seems perfectly suited for sheldrake, a mycologist - the key ingredient in lsd being lysergic acid, derived from the ergot fungus - and although, by his account, he spent most of his trip considering what it would really feel like to be a mushroom, it opens the door for his musings on acid, "magic mushrooms", and the potential good they can do in society, if used in the right way, and with respect for the impact that they can have on us.
if you disagree with him on this, there's still plenty to enjoy in entangled life. sheldrake discusses fungi's role in our ecosystem, the future role they may play in environmentally friendly products, the sinister and spine-tingling mechanisms of parasitic fungi (a la cordyceps), and the importance of fungi in every day life.
overall, entangled life is a joy to read. sheldrake's passion and enthusiasm for his subject shines through in his writing; if you like mushrooms, and don't think you have enough reasons to talk about them, then read entangled life and annoy your friends even more with fungi facts.