Title: Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms
Author: Eugenia Bone
Publication: Rodale, November 2011
My Star Rating: 4 stars out of 5 = I Like It
Summary Statement: A Foodie Learns About Wild Mushrooms in This Project Memoir
I’ve taken to calling this type of book a project memoir: where a person knows a little about a subject, decides to go learn more about it and writes a book describing their learning journey. This type of book includes personal opinions and various details that never would make it onto the pages of a traditional nonfiction book. While reading this book it dawned on me that whether a reader enjoys a project memoir or not will depend on two things: 1) how they relate or do not relate to writer’s point of view and personality and 2) how much the reader knows compared to the writer and if the book winds up teaching them new interesting or entertaining things (or whether they are let down by the book as they know more than the author does).
Bone is a self-proclaimed foodie, food writer, and blogger living in New York City. Her family gathered wild mushrooms and there are fond memories from her childhood. Desiring to know more, she sets out to attend various conferences and conventions and takes other trips to places across North America to mushroom hunt and to meet and interview various people in the fungi world. I am willing to bet that foodie readers (vs. scientists) will enjoy this book most.
What you should know about me which affects my view of this book is that I’m a nature lover and gardener. I’m a slow foodie. I’m the old fashioned sort, a home cooker and home baker rather than the sort who dine at swanky expensive places. I have been learning about and eating wild crafted foods (berries, nuts and plants) although not mushrooms (yet). I am still a mushroom newbie and have not yet had not had enough self-education with books or taken any classes to help educate me as to which are poisonous versus edible or medically beneficial. I guess what I’m saying is that I am more like the author than I am from the scientist fungus lover’s camp, so I enjoyed the book and rate it 4 stars = I Like It.
In a nutshell I found this book entertaining. It covers a wide span of the mushroom and fungi world, everything from mushrooms as food to medicine to psychedelic recreational drug. I learned more about the science of fungi than I ever thought I could enjoy. I was most impressed to learn of the inter-relatedness of fungi to wild trees and even things such as how fungi can help a tree not die from drought but how fertilizing lawns or parks can kill the fungi and thus weaken the trees that well-intentioned people are trying to help in the first place! Only in a few places did I find the book boring when it went just a tad deeper than I cared to know and my mind wandered.
I found this book easy to read. Each chapter is its own topic so it is a good book to read one chapter a day such as for before-bed reading. I found the book informative and educational. The book boosted my confidence and left me curious to study mushrooming as a hobby. Although I’ve been looking at and photographing wild mushrooms for a couple of years and own (just) one field guide, when I finished this I feel still curious to know more and plan to read more and maybe finally reach out to a local mushroom group to go on guided mushrooming hike.
If you enjoy project memoirs and are curious about fungi and mushrooms you may like this book. If you already know a fair amount about fungi, I am not sure if this book will teach you anything you don’t already know, it has a wide span so I’m willing to guess you’ll learn something. If you favor more serious nonfiction books to learn from and dislike project memoirs perhaps you’d better look for a straight nonfiction book on the topic.
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