The author, Merlin Sheldrake, grew oyster mushrooms out of his own book, harvested them, then cooked and ate them ( His review of the mushrooms? “They were delicious: I couldn’t taste any off notes, which suggests that the #fungus had fully metabolised the text.”.They were delicious: I couldn’t taste any off notes, which suggests that the #fungus had fully metabolised the text. Here is a video of me eating the mushrooms that sprouted from my book, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, & Shape Our Futures. So if I may just direct your attention to these following points for why you might be interested to read this delightful book on fungi (apart from the fact that it’s a book about fungi – you all know how I feel about mushrooms and their kith): That’s the first quote I highlighted in the pages because it captured the excitement I felt about this book throughout my reading it, though part of why I hadn’t highlighted anything prior to it was probably because I was going along at breakneck pace.Īlright, so maybe I didn’t start off with a good combination (sex and fungal matter).

To imagine the future plant as separable from the fungus was absurd” (Sheldrake, Entangled Life, chapter 5: Before Roots). But it was sexy: Cells from two different creatures had met, incorporated each other, and were collaborating in the building of a new life. I’m going to quote from Sheldrake’s book again in this short span of two sentences because I cannot do him justice (though in my defence, the first quote was a quote of a quote): “This wasn’t sex: Fungal and plant cells hadn’t fused and pooled their genetic information. So the original plan was to write about sex*, but this.

Fungi book merlin