It's a daunting task for a non-scientist to review a book steeped in science, history, evolution, and philosophy. Author and mycologist Merlin Sheldrake, whose very name conjures images of hobbits, Harry Potter characters, or more closely, Borrowers, since much of his research is based on underground mycelial networks, holds a PhD from Cambridge University where he studied tropical ecology. Throughout the book, he leads the reader through a wonderous world of mycelial networks and many kinds of fungi, and takes you on around the world explorations. Indeed, the first page of the prologue has you lying with Sheldrake on the floor of a Panamanian jungle tracing the root of a tree. When he reaches the root tips, the point where the roots end in leaves and twigs, the story has just begun. He is searching for the sticky casings surrounding the root tips, the mycelial network.

First, some of the mechanics of this book. It is only 225 pages and illustrated with drawings made with Coprinus ink derived from shaggy ink cap mushrooms. There are an additional 94 pages of notes and bibliography, and an index. Unless you are a mycologist or botanist, it is likely there are many words, terms, fungi and science hypotheses you've not heard before--hyphae, holobiont, mycofiltration, microbiomes, enthogens, plant infochemicals, astrobiology, mycophilia, and root-brain hypothesis, by way of examples, on almost every page of the book. You will not need a dictionary by your side. Sheldrake explains words and concepts in layman's terms, and often adds the history of the word or concept, and brings it to life with vivid storytelling

Similar to learning algebra, you must learn the rules, and in this case, you must learn the basics of hyphae (pronounced HY fee, networks of fungi cells) and mycelium (a process of “anarchic” cells going everywhere) that are used for communication, nutrition, and defense for their own good and often in support of other plants. Is it cooperation or competition, or both, or sometimes cooperation and sometimes competition?

Sheldrake teases the reader into the book with a chapter, appropriately titled “A Lure,” on truffles. Truffles are the highly-prized and expensive underground fruiting body of mycorrhizal fungi and spend most of the year as mycelial networks. How does a subterranean spore-producing fungi reproduce? Sheldrake will tell you. For generations, truffles have lured humans and their trained animals into hunting them, and have spawned amateur mycologists.

If you've not considered that yeast and lichens are classified as fungi, you are not alone. Sheldrake explains the shortfalls of the taxonomic system created by Carl Linneaus. Linneaus understood there were limitations in the fungi classification, and wrote, “The Order of Fungi is still Chaos, a scandal of art, no botanist knowing what is a Species and what is a Variety.” Yeast, lichens and algae are featured in Sheldrake's book. Green algae, the genesis of plants, moved from sea to land about 600 million years ago, when it partnered with fungi…most likely, by striking up “mycorrhizal relationships.” Plants comprise 80% of earth's life mass, are the food basis for most terrestrial organisms, and about 90% of plants depend on mycorrhizal relationships. We can then begin to recognize the importance of mycorrhizae, its relationship to life on earth, and the desire to further study what it is and how it works.

Can fungi be used to filter runoff from fire devastated housing areas in California? A mycoremediation study is underway. Fungi is already used to help clean up oil spills. Can fungi be used to biodegrade polyurethane plastic? A novel fungal strain was found in Islamabad that does just that. Can fungi be used to build housing and clothing? Yes, it can. Fungi was used to create penicillin. What other fungi-based medical applications remain undiscovered? Mycology is in its infancy.

What does it mean? There are more questions than answers. Under a shaded arbor early one relatively cool August morning, a dozen Master Gardeners met to discuss “Entangled Life.” They puzzled over and discussed the minutiae and fantastical included in this short, dense and engrossing book and unanimously agreed this book was worthy of a book review and by extension, a worthwhile read.