Fungi are everywhere but they are easy to miss. They are inside you and around you. They sustain you and all that you depend on. As you read these words, fungi are changing the way that life happens, as they have done for more than a billion years. They are eating rock, making soil, digesting pollutants, nourishing and killing plants, surviving in space, inducing visions, producing food, making medicines, manipulating animal behavior, and influencing the composition of the Earth’s atmosphere. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways that we think, feel, and behave. Yet they live their lives largely hidden from view, and over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented. The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them.
Sheldrake, Merlin. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, p. 3. Kindle Edition.
The transformational power of yeast has long been personified as a divine energy, spirit, or god. How could it escape this treatment? Alcohol and inebriation are some of the oldest magics. An invisible force conjures wine from fruit, beer from grain, mead from nectar. These liquids alter our minds and have been enfolded within human cultures in many ways: from ritual feasting and statecraft, to a means to pay for labor. For just as long, they have been responsible for dissolving our senses, for wildness and ecstasy. Yeasts are both makers and breakers of human social orders.
Sheldrake, Merlin. Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, 56%. Kindle Edition.
Today's Featured Book:
Entangled Life:
How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, & Shape Our Futures
by Merlin Sheldrake
Genre: Nature
Published: May 12, 2020
Page Count: 345 pages
Summary:
When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave.
Fungi throw our concepts of individuality and even intelligence into question. They are metabolic masters, earth makers, and key players in most of life’s processes. They can change our minds, heal our bodies, and even help us remediate environmental disaster. By examining fungi on their own terms, Sheldrake reveals how these extraordinary organisms—and our relationships with them—are changing our understanding of how life works.
This is our naturalist group's book club selection for October and November. I know little about fungi, and I'm eager to learn more.
As a book lover, what’s your biggest fear? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee-Addicted Writer)
I will turn seventy in November. I'm beginning to fear that I may not have time to read every book before I die.
That's currently my worst fear as well. Largely also because I continue to add books to my TBR pile.
ReplyDeleteHere's my BBH
Have a GREAT day!
Old Follower :)
I read the Sheldrake book a couple of years ago and it is on my shelf. I must take it down and read it again.
ReplyDeleteWe always used to say ( as kids ) “there’s a fungus among us” …. sounds like a very interesting book. This week the rain as brought out a very amazing ring of fungus (mushroomy) on our front lawn so fungus has been in my thoughts.
ReplyDeleteHave a good weekend… mae at maefood.blogspot.com
Fungi are fascinating. I know way too little about them, the book sounds really interesting.
ReplyDeleteI’ve had this book on my list since last Nonfiction November. Thanks for the great reminder about this fascinating book.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I love your new leafy cover.
ReplyDeleteOh, you will love this, this is fabulous. I listened to it, narrated by the author, and then I bought it on print. he has also excellent videos on the topic
ReplyDeleteThat book sounds interesting. I don't know much about Fungi either.
ReplyDeleteOh bless you. I never even thought about that. Now I have 😂
Have a great week!
Emily @ Budget Tales Book Blog
My post:
https://budgettalesblog.wordpress.com/2026/10/02/book-blogger-hop-as-a-book-lover-whats-your-biggest-fear/
This was one of mine too! There are just so many books I still want to read and somehow that list keeps getting longer instead of shorter. Happy Reading!
ReplyDeleteThe yeast snippet made me smile, wine from fruit and beer from grain described as some of the oldest magic. I mostly read non-fiction, so this one is going on my list. And I share your fear, my to-read pile only ever gets longer.
ReplyDeleteI've always been fascinated by fungi. I think I must get my hands on this book.
ReplyDeleteThis books sounds fascinating and fungi of any kind has never been high up on my interest list! I refuse to even consider the possibility of not getting all the books read that I want to read! I am trying to be more selective about what I read and what I chose to add to my TBR.
ReplyDeleteI’ve never liked to eat fungi, but it sounds like I need to know more about them.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a really fascinating read! I don't know as much about fungi as I probably should. Thanks for sharing! :D
ReplyDelete