First Published: 2020


Entangled Life

How fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our futures

Bodley Head
Original Language:
Summary :
An introduction to the world from the point of view of fungi. Symbiotic beings which live as a network.
Last read:
Thu 21st Jan 2021


How fungi, of all sorts including lichens form relationships and interact with their environments. What they do with other creatures - plants and animals including humans, and how we can understand and make sense of them. 

How they have helped us in the past (not least by being instrumental in forming the world we live in, and how we could nurture productive relationships with them to solve human-world problems.

Part natural history, part biology, part philosophy, part political - sometimes mind-boggling and surprising - a complex and rewarding book.

Comprehensive references, endnotes and bibliography included (about a quarter of the book) and a selection of colour photos. 



The Beauty of the Network

by rogerco on Thu 21st Jan 2021.

Very good to read, engrossing and entertaining. Sometimes digressive, but never wandering far from the core theme of fungi and our relationship to them.

Some interesting musings on the nature of symbiotic relationships and how they can be understood without anthropomorphising them. This point is driven home repeatedly in the second half of the book - the suggestion that in some sense we are tools of the fungus rather than the other way around.

Fascinating detail on the inner and outer life of all sorts of fungi. Totally in tune with a systems view of life as an interconnected complex self-adaptive network. Usefully blurring the boundary of the individual - everything exists within a context that gives it meaning and thus is a part of it - there are no hard and fast boundaries.

xbBooks by CrOsborne