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There are three great kingdoms of life – Animals, Plants and Fungi – but the fungi always come in third place. This may be because fungi seem alien to many people: their strange forms, their rapid appearance and disappearance, their hidden means of feeding and propagation. In Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind, acclaimed scientist and author Richard Fortey acknowledges this otherworldliness, marvels at their unique charm and boots-up as a guide through this great, mysterious Kingdom of life.
To Fortey, the strangeness of fungi is what makes them so exciting. Many people find them alien and threatening: the way so many toadstools appear so quickly and disappear with equal dispatch; their strange forms and colours; their reputation as poisoners. But for Fortey, the extraordinary nature of fungi makes him wonder, think and marvel. In Close Encounters of a Fungal Kind, Fortey leads us on a glorious literary journey, narrated through field trips to real places in search of the strangest, most extraordinary, or even most delicious fungi.
Writing with characteristic warmth, wit and wisdom, Fortey focuses on a selection of the larger fungi, the kind that might be spotted on a country walk, and a handful of microfungi that have particularly caught his attention. His enthusiasm and passion as a life-long 'mushroom twitcher' is infectious as he shares his own 'close encounters' and brings us along on his treks through this magnificent Kingdom.
The unique charm of the mushrooms themselves is centre stage in this gripping narrative that explains what fungi do in the natural world and rejoices in their profusion and diversity.
Richard Fortey retired from his position as senior palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in 2006. He is the author of several books, including Fossils: The Key to the Past, The Hidden Landscape which won The Natural World Book of the Year in 1993, Life: An Unauthorised Biography, Trilobite! and The Earth: An Intimate History. He has been elected to be President of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.
PRAISE FOR A CURIOUS BOY
'Truth and courage are what memoirs need and this one has them both in spades ... He never forgets that the small boy, watching his father's effortless casting on the waters of the Itchen, somehow remains permanently present inside the great, famous and lauded scientist. The unforgotten boy: that is what makes this a book a revelation'
Adam Nicolson, winner of the 2018 Wainwright Prize
'A wonderful, absolutely beguiling glimpse into the formative life of a great scientist. I learnt a lot and really loved it'
Richard Holmes
'Wonderfully lyrical ... funny and entertaining ... I would also suggest that the real revelation is something other than the way these multiple childhood paths converge ... [but rather] his ability to see and interpret the complexities of the living world, as if from a great height, and then to compress all the technical material into a scientifically accurate form that is also full of poetry and music ... The most compelling insight of the book: the way in which its author has striven to fuse and harmonise, often against career typecasting, professional constraint and simple circumstances, to become the whole person he wished to be ... Both the book and the life it recounts amount to a singular triumph'
Mark Cocker, Guardian
'A gloriously evocative account of the childhood that created the scientist'
Daily Mail
'[A] wonderful, wry memoir'
BBC Wildlife
'[Fortey's] book's punning title distils both its irresistible charm and a deep truth about science'
Nature
