I'm going to post a list of the most useful and well-known books about mushrooms here, with links to Amazon as well.
If you own one of them and want to make a mini-review, just post a reply to this topic
| | Mushrooms Demystified
by David Arora
Amazon.com Review
This is the be-all and end-all of mushroom books! Truly an encyclopedia of mushroom facts and lore, lavishly illustrated with full-color photographs, literally everything you need to know about mushrooms, edible or not. Arora has taught mycology for close to twenty years and has hunted and photographed mushrooms across the North American continent. Threaded through the book are his wry and humorous observations and comments, making what could have been a rather dull, "just-the-facts, ma'am" reference book into a really enjoyable read. The stunning photographs of the incredible variety of fungi are fascinating and eye-opening, and while the author gives clear and factual information, the mysterious allure of mushrooms in their countless shapes, sizes and colors is only increased by this huge and delightful book. --Mark Hetts
Review
An exceptional book . . . a must for intermediate and advanced mushroom collectors and those with wide horizons.-Cottage Life
Product Description
Simply the best and most complete mushroom field guide and reference book, MUSHROOMS DEMYSTIFIED includes descriptions and keys to more than 2,000 species of mushrooms, with more than 950 photographs. Mushroom authority David Arora provides a beginner's checklist of the 70 most distinctive and common mushrooms, plus detailed chapters on terminology, classification, habitats, mushroom cookery, mushroom toxins, and the meanings of scientific mushroom names. Beginning and experienced mushroom hunters everywhere will find MUSHROOMS DEMYSTIFIED a delightful, informative, and indispensible companion.
About the Author
David Arora has taught micology for the last 15 years in California and has hunted and photographed mushrooms across the continent. |
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| | 100 Edible Mushrooms
Michael Kuo (Author)
With a dash of humor and a dollop of science, Michael Kuo selects the top 100 mushrooms best suited for cooking. Like Kuo’s very popular book Morels, 100 Edible Mushrooms is written in the author’s inimitable, engaging, and appealing style, taking the reader on the hunt through forest and kitchen in search of mycological pleasures and culinary delights.
Kuo describes in detail how to identify each species, where and when to find them, and how to cook them in creative and delicious recipes. The mushrooms presented in the book are the most often eaten varieties, and a description of the button mushrooms found in the grocery store is included. All of the mushrooms have at least one full-color illustration and some several more to aid in identifying and distinguishing look-alike and nonedible species.
An indispensable book for mushroom hunters, naturalists, and cooks
Michael Kuo, an English teacher in Illinois, is the developer of mushroomexpert.com, a popular online resource for mushroom identification and morel hunting. |
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| | Mushrooming without Fear: The Beginner's Guide to Collecting Safe and Delicious Mushrooms
Alexander Schwab (Author)
Product Description
Novices eager to collect tasty wild mushrooms will find this unique guide invaluable. Unlike others, it focuses only on those types that are both safe to eat and delicious. Most important, it presents the eight rules of mushroom gathering in a straightforward fashion—including “Never, never take a mushroom with gills” and “If a mushroom smells rotten, it is rotten.” Among the many mushrooms covered are the cep; the red-cracked, larch, bay, and birch boletes; hen of the woods, chanterelle, trumpet chanterelle, hedgehog fungus, common puffball, horn of plenty, and cauliflower mushroom. Each is identified with several color photographs and identification checklist, and there’s also information on mushroom season, handling, storage, and cooking, complete with recipes.
From the Inside Flap
With more than 700 mushrooms detailed with color photographs and descriptive text, this is the most comprehensive photographic field guide to the mushrooms of North America. The 762 full-color identification photographs show the mushrooms as they appear in natural habitats. Organized visually, the book groups all mushrooms by color and shape to make identification simple and accurate in the field, while the text account for each species includes a detailed physical description, information on edibility, season, habitat, range, look-alikes, alternative names, and facts on edible and poisonous species, uses, and folklore. A supplementary section on cooking and eating wild mushrooms, and illustrations identifying the parts of a mushroom, round out this essential guide. |
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| | Start Mushrooming
Stan Tekiela (Author)
Product Description
For beginners who want to try mushrooming, this book offers a unique approach that focuses on six of the most unmistakable, edible mushrooms in North America. Illustrations, natural history and photos are well organized, in an easy-to-use layout. Recipes are included. |
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| | All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms
David Arora (Author)
Product Description
Full-color illustrated guide to identifying 200 Western mushrooms by their key features.
About the Author
David Arora has taught micology for the last 15 years in California and has hunted and photographed mushrooms across the continent.
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| | Mushrooms
Roger Phillips (Author)
Product Description
The culmination of over thirty years' work, this authoritative and superbly illustrated reference work is packed with the most up-to-date information and original photographs. Set to become the essential illustrated mycological encyclopedia for the next 25 years, this book is also clear, user friendly and will appeal to a wide range of readers.
Unsurpassed in both illustrative and descriptive detail, Mushrooms contains over 1,250 photographs, often showing the specimens in various stages of growth, and including all the latest botanical and common names as well as current ecological information on endangered species.
Having sold more than 750,000 copies in Europe of his previous title on mushrooms, Roger Phillips' new book once again sets the benchmark. Quite simply, nobody with an interest in the subject can afford to be without this book.
'Roger Phillips has written the best mushroom book I know: the sublime taxonomic accuracy of his descriptions and photographs, combined with an evangelical and infectious passion for the subject, will make an instant mycophile of anyone who picks it up.' Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
'A masterpiece of identification.' David Bellamy
About the Author
Roger Phillips is an award-winning photographer with a reputation spanning thirty years. He has consistently pioneered the use of colour photography for the reliable identification of natural history subjects, and has wrtten more than 20 books dedicated to this purpose. |
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| | The Encyclopedia of Fungi of Britain and Europe: Indentifies 1,000 Species With Color Photographs
Michael Jordan (Author)
Product Description
A comprehensive handbook for dedicated mycologists and naturalists alike. It features 1000 species of higher fungi to be found in Britain and northern Europe. Each has been photographed in situ in natural light and is supported by detailed mycological descriptions. |
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| | National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (National Audubon Society Field Guides)
Gary H. Lincoff (Author)
Product Description
With more than 700 mushrooms detailed with color photographs and descriptive text, this is the most comprehensive photographic field guide to the mushrooms of North America. The 762 full-color identification photographs show the mushrooms as they appear in natural habitats. Organized visually, the book groups all mushrooms by color and shape to make identification simple and accurate in the field, while the text account for each species includes a detailed physical description, information on edibility, season, habitat, range, look-alikes, alternative names, and facts on edible and poisonous species, uses, and folklore. A supplementary section on cooking and eating wild mushrooms, and illustrations identifying the parts of a mushroom, round out this essential guide.
From the Inside Flap
With more than 700 mushrooms detailed with color photographs and descriptive text, this is the most comprehensive photographic field guide to the mushrooms of North America. The 762 full-color identification photographs show the mushrooms as they appear in natural habitats. Organized visually, the book groups all mushrooms by color and shape to make identification simple and accurate in the field, while the text account for each species includes a detailed physical description, information on edibility, season, habitat, range, look-alikes, alternative names, and facts on edible and poisonous species, uses, and folklore. A supplementary section on cooking and eating wild mushrooms, and illustrations identifying the parts of a mushroom, round out this essential guide. |
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| | Mushrooms and Other Fungi of Great Britain and Europe
Roger Phillips (Author), Lyndsay Shearer (Author)
A customer review
I bought this pioneering book when it came out in the early 1980s for identifying British fungi. At the time it was revolutionary as the use of photographs allowed the author to depict mushrooms much more accurately than the paintings of earlier guides. It is still one of the top field guides to this region (also check Courtecuisse & Duhem and Jordan). I still use this volume a lot for identifying American fungi, both in the tropics and North America. Although I have over 200 field guides of different sorts on my shelves this remains one of my all time favourites. If you're interested in fungi, don't hesitate. |
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| | Morels
Michael Kuo (Author)
Product Description
Join the hunt for one of the most sought-after mushroom marvels---the elusive morel
"Michael Kuo offers an engaging survey of a diverse group of fungi whose fruiting bodies are among the most prized edible mushrooms. Morels is a lavishly illustrated poem that will be relished by amateur and professional mycologists alike."
---Nicholas P. Money, author of Mr. Bloomfield's Orchard: The Mysterious World of Mushrooms, Molds, and Mycologists
Filled to the brim with information about the science and sport of finding, identifying, and savoring these world-renowned fungi, Morels is a far-ranging, reader-friendly book about one of America's most popular and passionately pursued outdoor activities.
Author Michael Kuo brings years of morel-hunting experience to Morels, delivering detailed information in an engaging, readable style to seasoned morel hunters and beginners alike.
Morels includes extensive information on the art of hunting morels and on current scientific knowledge regarding these delectable fungi. In addition, Kuo compiles easy-to-understand information on the latest scientific research into morels, from studies into how they grow to DNA-based classification of species.
With over two hundred color photographs. |
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| | The Mushroom Lover's Mushroom Cookbook and Primer
Amy Farges (Author), Christopher Styler (Author)
Product Description
No one has done more to popularize mushrooms in America than Amy Farges, food writer and co-owner of the national mushroom distributor Aux Delices Des Bois. And now that Ms. Farges made sure mushrooms are available, she shows what to do with them. The Mushroom Cookbook and Primer is an inspiration-a mushroom extravaganza with 175 exquisite yet easy-to-make recipes, plus a Mushroom 101 guide to selecting, storing, cleaning, and cooking, plus a primer with full profiles and photographs of 40 exotic mushrooms.
Full of sweet succulence, toothsome crunch, and haunting flavors from earthy to fruity to seafood-like, mushrooms offer the home cook a dazzling range of possibilities. Here are finger foods: Morels with Calvados, Ovoli and Fig Crostini, Wild Mushroom Bruschetta. Lighter offerings: Porcini Carpaccio, Cream of Asparagus Soup with Roasted Cremini, Blewitt and Crab Rolls. Glorious pairings: Risotto with Corn and Chanterelles, Sirloin Steak with Wine Caps, Mustard-coated Lamb Chops with Wild Oysters, Truffled Lobster with Cilantro Butter, Duck and Shiitake Tortillas. And the unexpected: Black Trumpet Biscuits, Portobello and Basil Salsa, Hen of the Wood Ravioli. A dozen fitting mushroomless desserts offer the irresistible finish.
From the Back Cover
A Must for Any Mushroom Enthusiast. (Jean Georges Vongerichten)
"Amy's book more than illustrates her passion for the 'mighty mushroom,' and will provide any cook with both practical information and culinary inspiration." (Daniel Boulud)
Cooking her way through over fifty seasons of porcinis and portobellos, chanterelles, blewits, and hedgehogs, Amy Farges knows the secret of each wild and cultivated mushroom's affinities, its preferred cooking method, its subtleties of texture, flavor, and even size. And as the co-founder, with her husband, of Aux Delices des Bois and Marche aux Delices, the New York - based mushroom purveyors, she's spent over a dozen years talking mushrooms, handling mushrooms, tasting mushrooms, and swapping mushroom ideas. Distilled here are the best of her recipes and knowledge. It's mushroom heaven.
About the Author
Amy Farges, along with her husband Thierry, founded and operated the wild mushroom company Aux Delices des Bois for 11 years. Currently they distribute mushrooms through their catalog, Marche aux Delices. A classmate of Steven Raichlen and Susan Herrmann Loomis at La Varenne cooking school in Paris, Ms. Farges has written articles for Fine Cooking, Food & Wine, and Brides magazine. She lives in New York.
Christopher Styler has enormous culinary range. He is a chef, cookbook writer, editor, restaurant consultant, and culinary producer of some of PBS-TV’s most successful cooking series. He lives in New Jersey. |
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| | Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms
Paul Stamets (Author)
Product Description
After years of living in awe of the mysterious fungi known as mushrooms-chefs, health enthusiasts, and home cooks alike can't get enough of these rich, delicate morsels. With updated production techniques for home and commercial cultivation, detailed growth parameters for 31 mushroom species, a trouble-shooting guide, and handy gardening tips, this revised and updated handbook will make your mycological landscapes the envy of the neighborhood.
About the Author
PAUL STAMETS is the founder of Fungi Perfecti and codirector and founder of the Rainforest Mushroom Genome and Mycodiversity Preservation Project. He is the author of two seminal textbooks, The Mushroom Cultivator and GROWING GOURMET AND MEDICINAL MUSHROOMS, has been published in numerous journals, and is presenting more lectures on mycology than he can keep track of. An advisor and consultant to the Program for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona Medical School and the 1998 recipient of the Collective Heritage Institute’s Bioneers Award, Stamets lives in Kamilche Point, Washington with his collection of more than 250 medicinal mushroom cultures. |
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| | The Mushroom Cultivator: A Practical Guide to Growing Mushrooms at Home
Paul Stamets (Author)
A customer review
I often refer to this book at the "bible", also. And it's writen by the "Cultivation God" himself. I already knew how to cultivate before i bought this book, and had a fairly wide knowledge of the subject. The amount of information in this book is unbelievable. I was just shocked. And, in a sort of response to the person who said there's too much info - if you're going to cultivate mushrooms, the more information the better. You can get buy with just a step-by-step guide, but you won't be very successful, and if you run into problems, or want to do more, then you're not going to know what to do. If you really want to cultivate mushrooms, and you really want to enjoy it, then you've got to get this book. It's easy to understand, and gives some basic information on the life cycle and properties of mushrooms. Ask anyone that cultivates, and knows a lot about cultivating, and they'll tell you that this is a must have book. It's probably my favorite book i've ever bought. Get it! |
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| | Mushrooms: Cultivation, Nutritional Value, Medicinal Effect, and Environmental Impact
Philip G. Miles (Author), Shu-Ting Chang (Author)
Product Description
Since the publication of the first edition, important developments have emerged in modern mushroom biology and world mushroom production and products. The relationship of mushrooms with human welfare and the environment, medicinal properties of mushrooms, and the global marketing value of mushrooms and their products have all garnered great attention, identifying the need for an updated, authoritative reference.
Mushrooms: Cultivation, Nutritional Value, Medicinal Effect, and Environmental Impact, Second Edition presents the latest cultivation and biotechnological advances that contribute to the modernization of mushroom farming and the mushroom industry. It describes the individual steps of the complex mushroom cultivation process, along with comprehensive coverage of mushroom breeding, efficient cultivation practices, nutritional value, medicinal utility, and environmental impact. Maintaining the format, organization, and focus of the previous edition, this thoroughly revised edition includes the most recent research findings and many new references. It features new chapters on medicinal mushrooms and the effects of pests and diseases on mushroom cultivation. There are also updated chapters on specific edible mushrooms, and an expanded chapter on technology and mushrooms.
Rather than providing an encyclopedic review, this book emphasizes worldwide trends and developments in mushroom biology from an international perspective. It takes an interdisciplinary approach that will appeal to industrial and medical mycologists, mushroom growers, botanists, plant pathologists, and professionals and scientists in related fields. This book illustrates that mushroom cultivation has and will continue to have a positive global impact on long-term food nutrition, health care, environmental conservation and regeneration, and economic and social change. |
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| | How to Identify Edible Mushrooms
Patrick Harding (Author), Tony Lyon (Author), Gill Tomblin (Illustrator)
Product Description
Fully illustrated throughout, this practical guide to identifying edible mushrooms gives you all the details you need to enjoy the adventure of locating and collecting wild mushrooms. The book features all edible species of mushroom, together with those with which they may be confused. Organised by habitat for easy reference, it is beautifully illustrated and includes the best ways to cook and eat the mushrooms you collect. Main species are illustrated in their relevant habitat, and key features are described in detail. 'Lookalikes' are shown alongside the main species, and additional illustrations indicate how they differ. Calendar bars indicating at what time of year you can expect to see each mushroom along with an annotated cross-section giving accurate measurements make identification easier.
About the Author
After gaining his doctorate by growing grass on coal tips, Patrick Harding enjoyed over 25 years as a university lecturer. He now runs numerous courses and works with the BBC on programmes about herbal medicine, wild flowers, mushrooms, and trees. Patrick is the author of 'Gem Mushrooms' and 'Need to Know Mushroom Hunting', and has had years of experience, lecturing and leading groups on fungal forays. He was recently filmed with Richard and Judy for a BBC 2 series. |
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| | Keys to Agarics and Boleti: Polyporales, Boletales, Agaricales, Russulales [Hardcover]
Meinhard Moser (Author), Roger Philips (Publisher)
An extensive book about agarics and boletus. 535 pages. |
