"Entangled Life" Discussion Post
Feb. 28th, 2026 07:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matsushima posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
bookclub_dwOK, everybody let's turn on some music, drop acid in a clinically controlled environment, and talk about mushrooms! 🍄
Q1: Have you read microhistory before? If this is a genre you're familiar with, what do you like about it? If this was your first, will you read more? *If you want to read more, I've got some recommendations where this came from.
Q2: Merlin Sheldrake obviously likes mushrooms, like, a lot. If you were going to write a book in this genre, what would you write about? It doesn't have to be science-y, either; there are lots of books like this about history, society, etc.
Q3: What's the most interesting fact you learned from this book? Why is that what stood out to you?
Q4: Sheldrake writes,
Q5: Pop-sci books like Entangled Life have to balance scientific accuracy and accessibility to a lay audience. How do you feel Sheldrake did? If you're a scientific expert, was the information correct? If you're not, was the book readable and did you feel like you understood what was being communicated?
Q6: Has reading Entangled Life changed the way you think about other everyday, apparently mundane, things?
Q7: OK, but… does anyone else want to try LSD after reading Entangled Life?
Q1: Have you read microhistory before? If this is a genre you're familiar with, what do you like about it? If this was your first, will you read more? *If you want to read more, I've got some recommendations where this came from.
Q2: Merlin Sheldrake obviously likes mushrooms, like, a lot. If you were going to write a book in this genre, what would you write about? It doesn't have to be science-y, either; there are lots of books like this about history, society, etc.
Q3: What's the most interesting fact you learned from this book? Why is that what stood out to you?
Q4: Sheldrake writes,
My hope is that this book loosens some of your certainties, as fungi have loosened mine.What (if any) certainties were loosened by reading Entangled Life?
Q5: Pop-sci books like Entangled Life have to balance scientific accuracy and accessibility to a lay audience. How do you feel Sheldrake did? If you're a scientific expert, was the information correct? If you're not, was the book readable and did you feel like you understood what was being communicated?
Q6: Has reading Entangled Life changed the way you think about other everyday, apparently mundane, things?
Q7: OK, but… does anyone else want to try LSD after reading Entangled Life?
no subject
Date: 2026-02-28 02:59 pm (UTC)Q2: I'm not really sure, something to do with trees. Maybe the natural history of the birch-beech-maple forests in North America.
Q3: At the beginning of the book, when Merlin first mentioned Paul Stamets, I sort of said to myself, "Isn't that the name of the officer on Star Trek: Discovery who controlled the mycelial network?" I finally looked it up on IMDB and found I was correct. Then much later in the book, we learn that the real scientist consulted on Discovery.
Q4: The whole argument about individual versus community was fascinating and recontextualizes how humans fit into the world.
Q5: I think he made the book pretty accessible - he referenced Alice's Restaurant and LSD trips in the prologue. Gave me the idea that I was in for a wild and entertaining ride. He put a lot of other pop cultural references in there, like Lord of the Rings if I recall. He hooked his ideas to social/political commentary, allowing non-scientist people to get an idea of what he meant.
Q6: I have a fraught relationship with mushrooms due to a childhood story, Babar I think. I definitely appreciate them more. And understand why truffles are such delicacies.
Q7: LOL, yeah a little bit.