Sheldrake wins 2021 Royal Society Science Book Prize

In the UK, Merlin Sheldrake has won the £25,000 (A$46,600) Royal Society Science Book Prize for Entangled Life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our futures (Vintage), reports the Bookseller.

Entangled Life explores the world of fungi and details ‘how their existence predates human history by millions of years and how, without them, plants would not have evolved onto land, an essential milestone without which humans would not exist’.

Judging panel chair Luke O’Neill described Entangled Life as ‘science writing at its very best … scientifically rigorous and most of all an entertaining read’. ‘Entangled Life is a fantastic account of the world of fungi, which to the uninitiated might seem unpromising as a topic, but which Merlin Sheldrake brings alive in the most vivid of ways.’

Sheldrake was chosen as the winner from a shortlist that also included The Last Stargazers (Emily Levesque, Oneworld), Breath (James Nestor, Penguin Life), The End of Bias (Jessica Nordell, Granta), The Sleeping Beauties (Suzanne O’Sullivan, Picador) and Science Fictions (Stuart Ritchie, Bodley Head).

Category: International news