We follow the lure of scent give off by truffles to learn about the complex chemical signals through which fungi communicate with other creatures and other fungi, friend and foe, in their network. In the chapters that follow, Sheldrake invites us deeper into this world. Plants, animals, and humans all are intertwined with fungi: they both make life possible and also cause diseases the wreak havoc on ecosystems and human economies. The lay person, thinking fungi, may think of mushrooms, but their most significant form is hyphae, ‘fine tubular structures that branch, fuse, and tangle into the anarchic filigree of mycelium’ through which flow water and nutrients, and some electrical impulses, analogous to the impulses in animal nerve cells.

Many of the most dramatic events in this history of Earth are the result of fungal activity they provide a key to understanding the planet, yet they have been strangely under-researched and undocumented. In his introductory chapter, he shows us that fungi are everywhere-indeed, the whole living world depends on them-but are easy to miss. The book is informed, first-hand, scholarly, and delightful to read. It is this sense of total engagement with the field that makes the book so enjoyable.

He doesn’t just study them as a scientist, he uses them as a brewer and a bread maker, he explores their hallucinatory effects and imagines life from their point of view. Sheldrake has thrown himself wholeheartedly into the world of fungi.

For his doctorate he studied underground fungal networks in tropical forests in Panama, and his writing draws on collegial links with other scientists round the world. Merlin Sheldrake is a research biologist with a PhD from Cambridge University who has worked with fungi since early fascination as a teenager. I found I could not really do better than quote Ian Henderson of the Department of Plant Sciences at Cambridge University: ‘A remarkable book that manages at once to be scholarly, visionary and a deeply entertaining and enjoyable read.’ Anyone interested in finding new understanding the living world in which we humans are embedded will enjoy and learn from this book. But when I had turned the final page of Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life, experiencing that peculiar tristesse one can feel at the end of a really good read, I turned to look at the page of puffs. I often wonder with some astonishment that these eminent folks have found so much to praise about a book. I am sure I am not alone in regarding such reviews, and in particular the prepublication puffs on the cover of a book, with a degree of scepticism. Entangled Lives by Merlin Sheldrake has been greeted with much enthusiasm, not least by Robert Macfarlane in the New Yorker.

Entangled life hardback