I was hoping that this book would put the ‘fun’ in ‘fungi’. The subject is so fascinating but unfortunately I didn’t like this book very ‘mush'(room). There were too many long descriptions of how mycelium works and a lot of unnecessary metaphors. I don’t ‘toad'(stool)-ally regret reading it, though, because I learned something, mainly that fungi are extremely important and that they’re very clever.
Luckily, I have now run out of fungi-themed puns.
I enjoyed the parts of the book where the author was searching for and experimenting with fungi. I thought that if there were more of these practical demonstrations and less of the theory, the book would be more readable. I had to skim-read many of the less interesting bits, as my brain just can’t process them. If I wanted to find out about the latest developments in mycology (the study of fungi), it would be a useful book.
The first chapter is about truffles. I only have experience of the chocolate variety, so the references to the enticing aroma of truffles didn’t mean anything to me. I don’t know what they smell or taste like. The average person probably doesn’t either, unless they are rich, or in the gourmet restaurant business, are a truffle hunter or indeed a mycologist.
There are some nice illustrations, drawn using ink from the shaggy inkcap mushroom, plus a small section of colour photographs.
First published in 2020.
What a brilliant pun-filled intro hahaha It does sound fascinating. Fungi can be quite terrifying, especially when you looked into how it works and what it can do! 😮
I can’t resist putting the puns into my reviews 😀 I think fungi are quite scary, but also cool and can be very helpful as well as harmful.
Loved your puns, but think I’d rather be left in the dark when it comes to this much detail about where my mushrooms come from…
I think for most of us, it’s enough to know that mushrooms are great. Thanks for reading 😀