From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

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

Merlin Sheldrake

Start date: February 1, 2021

Finish date: February 28, 2021

Discussion: Book Club 2021

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Book Club 2021

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Dec 09, 2020 Anna rated it liked it

As someone who trained as a microbiologist, I cannot dispute that fungi are a neglected and under-appreciated kingdom. In all my years of study, only one (elective) mycology course was offered. Of course, we learned that fungi are diverse, strange, and capable (the mazes!), but it seems that fungi are often a victim of their own success: because the kingdom is so vast and relatively unknown, we can really only appreciate them from a somewhat detached perspective (brewery field trips aside). Only As someone who trained as a microbiologist, I cannot dispute that fungi are a neglected and under-appreciated kingdom. In all my years of study, only one (elective) mycology course was offered. Of course, we learned that fungi are diverse, strange, and capable (the mazes!), but it seems that fungi are often a victim of their own success: because the kingdom is so vast and relatively unknown, we can really only appreciate them from a somewhat detached perspective (brewery field trips aside). Only fungi that are used in food production or are pathogenic get much of a mention at all.

Thankfully, this book fills in the gaps to create a more comprehensive overview of the universe of fungi. However, it does remain an overview. This book glides along on multiple topics, but doesn’t rest long on any one of them - other to consolidate the point that fungi are wonderfully weird, intertwined with all aspects of life (and non-life) on Earth, and under-utilized in solving the problems we face. It’s a great gateway into mycology, but not a definitive summary of the field or its objects of interest. The examples of fungal greatness focused on the unknown just as much of the known, which gives an awe-inspiring sense of the role and potential of these organisms.

Entangled Life is thoroughly researched and compelling in the areas it highlights. However, as a completionist reader, I was a bit distracted in my reading once I discovered the copious and detailed notes at the end of the book. The main text doesn’t have any sort of in-text references to the notes, so I had to do a lot of flipping back and forth. This may not bother some people, but, as I said, I’m a completionist. If I skip the notes altogether, I feel shortchanged. If I try to just read them at the end, I can’t recall precisely what the context was. This lack of in-text indicators seems to happen more and more with contemporary science books, which is a pity (for possibly only me, I will admit). Unfortunately, this setup did interrupt my reading flow, which is why I didn’t get as swept up in the writing as I might have. Regardless, no harm done to my appreciation of fungi.
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