The Secret Life of Fungi: Discoveries From a Hidden World

I loved this book. It’s a quick, engrossing read that’s so beautifully written. It’s filled with passion and heart and the author clearly loves the subject matter so much, it just shines through. I really didn’t want it to end and I’m sure I’ll be coming back to read certain chapters over and over :)

My mushroom loving, soft, eco friendly inclined, hippy heart was as happy as fungi on a rotting corpse reading this. Look, fungi are cool. You know that, I know that, Aliya Whiteley really knows that. A wonderful balance of educational information and profound statements delivered with humour and whimsy. Made me want to eat more mushrooms.

The biggest single living thing on earth is not a blue whale or a redwood tree, rather it is a simple fungus. I say simple, this particular specimen of honey fungus is huge, mind-boggling huge. It is the Malheur National Forest in the state of Oregon. It was found because it was killing trees in this forest and when the DNA was taken from trees around 2.4 miles apart, it was found to have the same DNA. Overall it was calculated to be 3.7 square miles and the guesses at its age vary between 1,900 – 8650 years old.<br /><br />They are some of the strangest living things that we have found so far on the planet. Bizarre is only part of it. They live all around us and sometimes even on us. They can work in harmony with the natural world or their mycelium can suffocate the life from its host. Those looking for a high, can try and source magic mushrooms, but where they choose to grow makes them less than appealing. They can be a wonderful source of food, from the ubiquitous button mushroom to the very hard to find, but exquisite truffle. They have even named one, the porcini, after me…<br /><br />Aliya Whiteley is one of those with a fascination, or to be more honest, an obsession with all types of fungi. It began in her childhood trying to take pictures on her camera on the ones she found on Darkmoor that always ended up a little out of focus when the film came back from the chemist. These specimens though were just the visible part, to learn more about them she would have to delve much deeper. Looking through the guide books she found that some of the names given to them were quite wonderful, who would not want to find a fairy sparkler? Others names though have a much more sinister vibe, who can fail to have a chill run down their neck at the thought of a death cap.<br /><br /><i>All fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once.” – Terry Pratchett</i><br /><br />Whiteley has packed this book with hundreds of facts about fungi, you can learn which species ejects its spores at 20,000g, which mushrooms the mummy that emerged from the ide in the Alps was carrying, which species she found a carpet of yellow mushrooms in a woodland walk on the way home from a club and which fungi that have the names Toxic Ooze and Clint Yeastwood. I rather liked this. It is not supposed to be a rigorous study, rather, Whiteley’s writing is fun to read as you follow her looping connections of all things mushroomy. It doesn’t read like a science paper either, her attention to detail is a countered with a dry sense of fun and lots of anecdotes of her fungi forays.

** Thanks to NetGalley, <b>Aliya Whiteley</b>, and Elliott &amp; Thompson for this ARC. The edition I read is not yet on Goodreads and will be out <b>November 3rd, 2022</b>. <br /><br />This was a really charming collection of reflections on fungi. Not quite science writing, not quite memoir, this was a series of standalone essays by the author about encounters with fungus. I read this in chunks before bed and it was the perfect book to leave and come back to over several days.<br /><br />4 stars - I really liked it

This was pretty ace actually. It is very informative, but written in quite a chatty style, and very readable. Fungi are fascinating, as this author would agree; the more I learn about them, the more I realise how much I don't know. I remember <a href="https://goodreads.com/author/show/641134.Chris_Packham" title="Chris Packham" rel="noopener">Chris Packham</a> on Springwatch talking about the mycelial networks under ground, connecting all the trees in a wood, and allowing them to communicate with each other; how cool! This is an excellent place to start if you want to learn more.<br /><br />*Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a review copy in exchange for an honest opinion.*

Please don’t ask me to explain, but fungi are absolutely fascinating to me. In another life, where I hadn’t gotten into medschool, I would have probably gone to uni for biology/ecology and books like this are a reminder that maybe I would’ve been very happy in that life as well.

As if there weren’t enough to worry about, it turns out there is a whole other class of beings on Earth – fungi. They are not plants, they are not animals. They are not viruses. But they are involved with all those things. Aliya Whitely is a big, if hesitant fan of fungi. Her book, The Secret Life of Fungi is a fun read, which means it is fast moving, top line only, wide-ranging, but informative. From science to childhood reminiscences and history (mostly plagues and death), she skims the fungi universe with evident passion in 30 quick chapters.<br /><br />Mushrooms are notorious for being toxic. Whitely is justifiably afraid to try them on her own, despite her research and her knowledge. Or rather, because of her research and her knowledge. Better to just admire them. But that only addresses consumption. Breathing in spores, or insects and vermin carrying them can lead to all kinds of horrific diseases and death. Loving fungi is complicated.<br /><br />They spread by unleashing clouds of all but invisible spores, some of which land where it can do the fungus some good – ie. reproduce. It might be on the back of ant, on a leaf, or on the ground. Every strategy is different. <br /><br />Mushrooms are not the fungus plant. They are the fruit produced by the fungus. They can be firm or slimy, huge puffballs or a mess of goo, or combinations thereof. Rare ones, like truffles, can go for a thousand euros a kilogram. People train dogs for years to be able to sniff them out. Pigs used to be the go-to sniffer, but they like to eat the merchandise. Dogs are simply happy with the game.<br /><br />What readers might not know is how adaptable and hardy fungi really are. Some of them can exist without oxygen or gravity, in outer space. They turned up all over the Mir space station before it was abandoned, and since the International Space Station has taken them onboard for experiments, it will be essentially impossible to get rid of them. Their spores go everywhere, and get into everything, in living bodies and especially in dead and decaying things. But also non-organic materials, like rocks and window panes. It seems they are the most adaptable beings on Earth.<br /><br />Fungi are specialized to be attracted to and accelerate decay. They help clean up the world, and have been doing so for countless eons. They are not, despite legend, confined to dark and damp places. They live on every continent, including Antarctica, and also underground, in complete darkness. Their underground connections, called hyphae, can extend for miles. <br />Whitely only touches briefly on my favorite aspect of fungi. They are a network, specifically an underground communications cable linking all manner of plants. Fungal hyphae are incredibly long strings underground that allow fungus and lichens to appear in and on everything, from trees to rocks and everything in between. But more interestingly, those hyphae are a communications carrier. They enable trees to communicate their status to each other. The forest is alive with underground chatter we have only just discovered. Trees will alter root growth, or send additional resources to areas according to communications passed along this network. They might be parched, or under attack. They might need to fight off a beetle infestations, which is a warning to all. <br /><br />Some beetles either leverage or unwittingly spread fungi under bark, usually not to the advantage of the tree. Think Dutch Elm Disease, which is on the verge of wiping out the entire species globally.<br /><br />This business of network communications is very much like the universe: the scale is astounding. Just as the universe, composed of trillions of suns usually bigger than ours, is also composed of subatomic particles that act as if they were in their own little universe, so with earthbound communications networks. While we are busy bouncing data around the globe to share cat videos and hate postings, the human body is a universe of networks inside itself. It is a loud, chattering din of communications along neural pathways, as everything is constantly reporting its status. Every muscle, every organ, every cell reports. Sometimes just locally, sometimes right to the brain. Change in status sends the brain into action, causing flight or fight instincts to activate, inflammation to seal off an injured area, T cells to fight invaders, and so on. <br /><br />This model is becoming seemingly common to life in general. It turns out the whole forest is linked by a similar communications system, provided by fungi. Trees are active participants, guarding their own health and co-operating within the forest community. The humble mushroom is at the center of critical communications systems. It’s a whole new discipline, emerging right now.<br />(For my review on this subject, see The Secret Language of Cells at <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://medium.com/the-straight-dope/how-the-body-communicates-to-itself-988c7598bfe7">https://medium.com/the-straight-dope/...</a> .)<br /><br />Fungi are also employed right in our homes. They run the fermentation process. They provide yeasts. As Whitely says: “The sourdough starter must be the only fungus that gets treated like a pet.” Remarkable range, worth considering more often and more deeply. This is a good start.<br /><br />David Wineberg<br />

In this illuminating book, Aliya Whiteley delves into everything from cellular makeup to the fascinating ways fungi interact with their surroundings and other species, as well as the many varied roles they've played in our own civilization. The vast potential of these understudied organisms is still untapped; though long used as a source of food and medicine, they could also hold the key to a variety of scientific advances, from agriculture to environmental innovations. The Secret Life of Fungi is a glimpse into their incredible, surprising and dark world: a lyrical tour through the eruption, growth and decay under our feet, overhead, and even inside us.<br /><br />A memoir of Whiteley’s love of the fascinating world of fungi, this is a lively and passionate exploration of an organism fundamental to sustaining life on earth which is often either neglected, misunderstood or both. Her enthusiasm for her topic and the accessible, conversational prose makes this a joyful read and she points out exactly how her interest in fungi has grown deeper over the years. Whereas Merlin Sheldrake’s recent book Entangled Life focused on how fungi supports life and was all-encompassing, this book, in contrast, focuses on how Whiteley’s life has been enriched by the many different types of fungi and their stories and is much more layperson friendly. Many thanks to Elliott &amp; Thompson for an ARC.

As there a number of photos in this review check it out on my blog: <a target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow" href="https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/10/18/the-secret-life-of-fungi-by-aliya-whiteley/">https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2020...</a>

I'm not the audience for this because I think if you struggle to comprehend articles on a subject, you shouldn't write a book on that subject.