I thought this book was really interesting and full of fascinating fungi tales. I've always thought fungi are amazing, but now I know that there are plastic eating mushrooms, vampire mushrooms, and even mushrooms that can live in space. wild.
The book is also informative and explains the science behind certain things in nature, but in an easy to understand way, for all the fungi enthusiasts who are not actual scientists.

Thank you to NetGalley and Elliott & Thompson for this ARC.

From a young age, I have always been fascinated by Fungus and Mushrooms, so this book was a great choice.
There are over fifteen thousand species of wild mushrooms in UK, although we generally eat only one type as buttons, chestnuts or portobellos (as most of the time we have no idea what is edible and what will kill us haha). Mushrooms, toadstools, truffles ... they are fascinating and they are everywhere.

I learnt so many facts about Fungus, that I had to share with my family, I feel like I've spoken about mushrooms more than anything else in the past couple of days.
The information is presented in such a great way that you don't feel like it's just talking at you or like a textbook, just a simple but informative book. The way the author speaks about nature is such an enjoyable and personal touch to the book, which I also adored.

I feel like if even if you're not a mycophile , you will find this fascinating and learn all new things.

A fantastic little book! Highly recommend for anyone even a little interested in mushrooms and fungi. I enjoyed annoying all of my family with little facts from this book and adding to my own special interest.

This is a beautiful book, and the author's love of fungi and mycology in general shines through. I think, for me, my interest in mushrooms et. al. is more theoretical than practical, and I *think* I'll like reading about the subject more than I actually do. That being said, this was still a very diverting book.

I didn't set myself the highest of expectations going into this book, I am not really interested in fungi and never have been, but I wanted to give it a go and I am so glad I did.

I have basically spent the past week enlightening (and annoying) anybody who will listen to me with amazing and interest facts about fungi that I have picked up from this book. I have had more conversations about mushrooms in this past week than ever before in my life and I never imagined myself being this hyped about something I had very little interest in before!

The style of writing is incredibly engaging and manages to present the information in such an engaging way you can't help but feel like a little kid marvelling at the wonders of a world you have been previously blind to.

From a quick glance it appears the author of the book has a background in fiction writing, specifically fantasy and sci fi related stories. This makes complete sense and explains the ability to present something that may appear mundane to many people, as something magical and wondrous.

This has been one of my most surprisingly enjoyable reads of the year so far!

Thanks to NetGalley and the Publisher for this ARC! This books reads as a love letter to fungi and it is beautiful. I learned a lot about this book, but not in a straightforward way, but in a meandering, thoughtful exploration of fungi and the authors relationship to them. This book was well-written, informative, and fascinating to read. As a fungi lover myself, I both learned some new things and also developed a greater appreciation of fungi in general.

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 Chris Pelham on Springwatch talking about the microbial networks under ground, connecting all the trees in a wook, and allowing them to communicate with each other; how cool! This is an excellent place to start if you want to learn more.

*Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for a review copy in exchange for an honest opinion.*

A beautifully written and entrancing deep dive into the world of fungi.
I was really interested to read this book, especially when I realised it was written by Aliya Whitely, after previously reading her prior work "The Beauty". Which, if you know you know...and I'll leave it at that.
I was fascinated looking at the world of fungi through her view.

While this book seemed very informative and well researched it never veered into too much biology jargon, and I feel this could be enjoyed by anyone from the mushroom enthusiast to an interested beginner.

How the author spoke about nature was such an enjoyable and personable touch to the book, which I also adored.
I flew through it, reading it in just one sitting in my own back garden.

The perfect science book without the draining feeling of reading a textbook. The Secret Life of Fungi is personal essays about the author's encounters with different fungi. Since each chapter is essentially it's own individual essay you can easily break the book down into multiple little sittings or devour the entire thing at once.

I'm personally fascinated by mycology and enjoy foraging and doing on my own mushroom hunting adventures - it was fun to read about someone else's experiences while also learning different pieces of information that I might not have known.

Thank you to NetGalley and Elliott & Thompson for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

There are over fifteen thousand species of wild mushrooms in UK, although we generally eat only one type as buttons, chestnuts or portobellos. Much as I love to eat them, there was a lot I didn’t know about the wonderful world of fungi. So I really enjoyed this short ‘foray among the funguses’, not least because I too enjoyed the delights of Sunday mushroom foraging in southern Germany as an au pair a very long time ago in Bavaria.

I’m not given to worrying too much about anything, let alone the state of the planet, so the recently noticed ability of two sorts of fungi to digest polyurethane strikes me as evolutionarily marvellous rather than cheering.

Nonetheless fungi are most peculiar. It appears that they digest both plant and animal matter by a process called osmotrophy - by invading the material and sending out enzymes to break it down. Their cell walls of are made of glucans, which are found in plants, and chitin, found in the exoskeletons of insects. Nothing else deploys this combination of material. Fungi are intriguingly neither plants nor animals, although they are closer to animals, and they can reproduce both sexually and asexually.

They challenge notions of what makes an individual. Lichen, for example is a symbiotic fusion of fungi and algae. Oregon hosts the largest single organism on the planet. It is probably 8,000 years old and the size of 110,000 blue whales.

The author ruminates upon the extraordinary impact of fungi on our world - they are the basis of penicillin and statins; we can make mycelium bricks and erect buildings using them; we use them in cotton processing and soft drink manufacture; we can grow sourdough starters and give them names like pets, while sand storm borne fungi can kill is by infecting our lungs and the poison of some other fungi results in certain death.

There is a world of literature, mainly in the horror mystery genre, devoted to fungi. LSD is derived from ergot, a fungus, whose ability to mimic rye grains, subsequently baked into bread, probably resulted in the strange episodes of dancing mania reported in the past and a disease known as St Anthony’s Fire. The active compound in magic mushrooms may yet prove a useful therapeutic.

There is a lot to enjoy and learn in this little book and I do hope you will read it.

** Thanks to NetGalley, Aliya Whiteley, and Elliott & Thompson for this ARC. This edition will be out November 3rd, 2022.

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.

4 stars - I really liked it

What a delight! This book is part personal narrative, part science lesson and part history tour. Each chapter reads as an individual essay so this is a great read to devour in one sitting (as I did) or to enjoy in little bites. I learned so much about fungi of all types and now I can't wait to check out what we find on our next hike.

I find fungi in general to be absolutely fascinating so when I saw this available to request as an ARC I was of course extremely excited. Aliya Whiteley does an amazing job of introducing the reader to all of the different types of fungi that exist and why they are so important to our world. The way she writes this is so beautifully done and in a way that anyone can enjoy this regardless of your level of interest in mushrooms or fungi. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What is it about fungus? Call them mushrooms, toadstools, truffles…. they are fascinating and they are everywhere. From fairytales and folklore to the markets of France, fungi capture our imagination. Whiteley shares her life long love of the tiniest specimens to the largest living organism on earth and her affection is contagious is this fascinating, enlightening book

I’m fascinated by mycology and the study of mushrooms and fungi and this book definitely helped satisfy my curiosity. It was brilliantly written; discussing all sorts of brilliant species and packed with a veritable feast of mushroom information.

The language makes it feel like a walk through the fields of mushroom discovery with beautiful imagery in writing. It was a pleasure to read and an easy one too, getting the balance perfectly between enjoyable non fiction and informative reading.

I learnt a lot from the book, and flew through it in no time. It was entertaining and effortless to read, with a mix of the authors own stories, science and awesome fungi facts (and the odd recipe or two and details to make a spore press).

It’s certainly a must read for anyone who is a mycophile or just wants to read a cool book on mushrooms! The chapters are short, succinct and interesting and you’re sure to learn a thing or two about these insane and often overlooked contributors to our lives and the world around us.