by Meg Madden
Running Press, 2023
Do you love mushrooms, or think you might love them if you knew more about them? This Is a Book for People Who Love Mushrooms is written for you: a fun and colorful pocket guide to a selection of familiar, charismatic, and weird mushrooms that can be found in North America. Accessibly written and visually inviting, it’s a great starter book for the myco-curious.
The book begins with an explanation of mushroom basics, including key terms, anatomy, classification, and ecology, as well as human uses that include foraging. Most of the book is dedicated to species or genus profiles, from edible to poisonous, colorful to cryptic, many with fascinating biographies. Illustrator Hannah Bailey’s charming and lively graphics inform and illustrate throughout.
As Madden explains, mushrooms aren’t just toadstools and portobellos from the grocery store. These fruiting bodies of fungi come in a staggering array of shapes, sizes, colors, and textures. However, Madden uses the familiar, basic toadstool shape to introduce anatomical terms common to mushrooms.
Madden also describes the common lifestyles of fungi, including where different types of fungi grow, and whether they produce visible mushrooms or live microscopically as yeast. In a whirlwind tour, we learn that fungi live as parasites, decomposers, or mycorrhizal symbiotes with plants and can also be found in many traditional human-made products, from foods to pharmaceuticals. They are also increasingly sources of inspiration for green technology innovation.
The extensive “Mushroom Profiles” section is the most enjoyable part of the book. Each mushroom is introduced with a short biography, including fascinating stories, followed by summaries on habitat and ecology, distribution, seasonality, and exact physical description. This section is where Madden’s deep personal experience as a fungi photographer and educator really shines. The descriptions are peppered with comments on the beauty or special characteristics of many of the mushrooms, as when she writes in the turkey tail section that “a log or stump covered in dozens of these beautiful, multicolored fan-shaped mushrooms is a glorious sight to see.” It’s easy to visualize Madden, camera in hand, pouncing on such a log or delightedly pointing it out to a group of students.
Several of my own favorite fungi are included in the profiles: vivid green elf cups, whose turquoise pigment has been used in woodworking; creepy caterpillar club fungi that burst out of moth pupae; and glow-in-the-dark Jack-o-lanterns with their bioluminescent gills. After reading this book, I have added several more mushrooms to my must-find list: cute conifer-cone caps that only grow from pinecones, weird and aptly named eyelash cups, and attractively banded gilled polypores.
The book’s final section of resources lists clubs, websites, field guides, and other books that Madden recommends for readers who want to extend their learning. This Is a Book for People Who Love Mushrooms doesn’t contain an identification key, so these resources are the next step for budding mushroom hunters.
If you love mushrooms, you’ll surely enjoy the curated selection of species and fun illustrations in this book. And if you are simply curious about mushrooms – and interested in learning more – this book will open your eyes to a world of colorful weirdness right at your feet.