An informative non-fiction about the world of fungi and mushrooms (from medicine to food to ecology etc.). This book focused on humans-mushrooms but I was more interested in the ecology of fungi. Overall, not what I was hoping for but an interesting collection of facts and interviews.

In Search of Mycotopia was a solid nonfiction title. It was very informative, and I learned about quite a few facets of the mushroom community. The book seemed to be compiled of various narratives of people in the mushroom world, which lends itself to being a good starting point for mushroom newbies. I wish the book discussed more of mushrooms in an ecological and environmental sense; moreover, the book more heavily focused on the different ways people interact with mushrooms not just in nature but also from a business and community standpoint. I thought that based on the title and blurb that would be a lesser focus.

A lovely, intricate description of the fungi kingdom. It a narrow but deep area of study, and it's very accessible to the average reader. I've learned more about different uses for fungi than I could ever imagine, and I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone interested in reading a fun nonfiction.

This is a very broad read by an author who fell, as many do, for the world of fungi. It looks at loads of different aspects of this fascinating kingdom of life. It's a hyperactive read, jumping from topic to topic and it can feel like drowning in terminology that I'm not certain the author is conversant in. That said, it's a wonderfully ambitious work that oozes passion and one can't be faulted for not knowing absolutely everything on a topic! This author has certainly tried to find out everything. I admire the focus on social enterprise and how the author links together utopianism and mycology.

I couldn't get into this one - it focused a lot on the people, and when it did look at science, it felt patchy or inconsistent - maybe like each science-y thing was being explained by a different person?

This is a challenging review for me to write, because I don't think I'm the target audience for this book, so I wasn't able to appreciate it like I would have. To elaborate: I'm very much a beginner and don't know a lot about mycotopia. I would have benefitted from an overview early on in the book, to help ease me into the world a bit better.

The book opened with a very person-specific story and since I'm not familiar with the person and didn't have a strong knowledge base, I got a little lost in the beginning. Unfortunately, that set the tone for further reading. I plan on coming back to the book when I have a stronger foundation - I think it will make a lot more sense to me then!

So it's tough to rate the book, as you can imagine. I don't think it's fair to give less stars because I didn't possess certain knowledge I felt was needed. But I do wish the beginning of the book contained a brief overview, for newbies.

But I can't penalize for that, because I don't think it was necessarily written for the newbie! So I'm going to give three stars, because I did like the content. If I come back to the book later, I'll update with further insights.

This book is essentially a collection of profiles of people who work with mushrooms - so, scientists, growers, business people, but then also, enthusiasts - people who run gatherings such as festivals, and people who connect online and use mushrooms as a symbol and as a unifier.

The author pretty much goes in that order, too, so at the start of the book you learn a great deal about mushrooms in the sections discussing scientists - both trained and self-trained. And because he discusses scientists, he also discusses the science, and let me tell you - mushrooms are unbelievable. I cannot even wrap my head around some of the things they do. They are straight out of science fiction.

But as out-of-this-world as mushrooms are, and as important as they are, there are a great many people in the Western world who are mycophobes, meaning people who don’t like mushrooms in the slightest, who believe them to be nuisances, or dangerous, or just something people get high on. And therefore, the field has been pushed to the side - it’s not taken as seriously as other sciences, and anyone who has a fascination with them is seen as weird (or as a druggie).

It’s this pushing of mushrooms to the fringe of science and society that partially has caused these underground communities to spring up around mushrooms. They actually serve as quite potent symbols of community and networking, given the science behind them, or should I say underneath them, since a passion for this field helps bring people together. The individuals that the author speaks to and the people attending the gatherings he covers often sing the praises of mushrooms: how organizing around them, cultivating them, using waste from other processes to grow them, becoming self-supporting by growing and eating them can give people the ability to change the world through the humble mushroom.

In some ways, I don’t think the idea is too far-fetched. I’m a big advocate of shopping locally and becoming self-sufficient is something I think we all should strive toward. It’s also very clear that mushrooms do really bring people together and help create a central point in building community. There's almost no limit to what people can achieve if they come together with a common goal and strive to achieve it as a unit.

But I think the issue that arises ended up being the biggest problem I had with this book: eventually the mushrooms got lost. A lot of these groups started to focus more on their social and societal goals, and when you're reading it, you start wondering...what does all of this have to do with mushrooms? I think the author was well aware of that, he even comments on it several times in the back half of the book (in a very subtle and polite way), but I really did feel like I myself had to forage through the text to find any mushrooms at all.

So while there was a lot of cool science in the first half of the book that I will carry with me for years to come and I can totally see how people recognize the amazing potential of mushrooms to foster community and social progress, I wish the focus on mushrooms hadn’t been lost.

I’m going to hold my hands up and say: I don’t know an awful lot about mushrooms! Mycology is a subject I briefly touched upon during my undergraduate degree studies but aside from that, I’m one of the people that vastly overlook this very important component of our ecosystem and environment.

This book was a great compendium of all sorts of mycology and mushroom based information, from the authors meetings with mushroom enthusiasts, festivals, those with fungi based businesses and the basic down low on mushrooms, what they are and why they’re important. I also enjoyed learning about the history of mycology as a science and its origins as well as the use of social media, citizen science and crowd source data.

If you’re expecting a book on just mushrooms cut and dry knowledge here, nope! You get way more than that. It’s a very likeable and readable book on a subject many wouldn’t think about and would easily look over in reading material. I had no idea what to expect when reading this book but I found I really enjoyed what I read. Who’d have thought mushrooms could be so interesting?!

It’s amazing the link between fungi and hugely big and challenging concepts like patriarchal society, colonialism, capitalism and supremacist worldview, I mean who’d have thought such a relationship and link existed? But it does! The topic represents so much and I couldn’t believe such links between the mycological field and LGBTQ as well.

In search of mycotopia brought the topic of mushrooms from dry academic text, down to within the population, with how it has impacted and benefited our lives, and how communities of fungi lovers (mycophiles) and amateurs have formed. I really had no idea how passionate some people could be about mushrooms, as beyond my academic interest, it’s not something I’ve really attributed much too. I knew of their importance in balancing an ecosystem but not how much passion there was in mycophiles around the world.

I really enjoyed reading about all sorts of mushroom and fungi based businesses, as well as the festivals and information exchanging programmes and events from around the world. I was also quite frankly mind blown at all the different applications fungi could be lent to, ie bioremediation, medicine, soil rejuvenation and cleansing waterways. There are so so many different incorporations in all sorts of different areas, aside from the food industry but into medical, environmental rejuvenation and even cleaning up industrial chemicals from our soil and waters. Wow. This book really did open my eyes. It was so so interesting !

I will definitely look and think about mushrooms differently after reading this book and can now say my knowledge on fungi has exponentially grown - like dispersing mushrooms spores in a woodland and have been thoroughly infected like an ant with Cordyceps militaris. (Yup, I can even make fungi based jokes now)!

Fab book. It really is a great read for all those that have an existing interest but also for those who have none and would like to know more. I really really enjoyed it.

In Search of Mycotopia is an informative and journalistic look at mycology and how it intersects different communities - written and presented by Doug Bierend. Due out 10th March 2021 from Chelsea Green Publishing, it's 336 pages and will be available in hardcover format.

This is a surprisingly engaging book about people who love fungi. There are scientists (both academics and laypeople whose love of all things mycology brings them together), producers, counter-cultural-citizen-mycologists, educators, foragers, ecologists, and ethnobotanists in a sort of network of advocates over a broad range of the population.

The book is layman accessible, and I found it a fascinating read. It's rigorously annotated (and the chapter notes and index make for fascinating further reading) but doesn't get bogged down in overly academic language. This is popular science writing - not a "how-to" guide. There are no tutorials here. The author does present a number of eccentric personalities from the counter-cultural vanguard, and always manages to do so with respect and affection. There are a handful of popular science and zoology writers who have the gift of writing layman accessibly and engagingly on their topics of expertise. Doug Bierend is one such.

Four stars. Heartily recommended for readers of science, ecology, ethnobotany and similar subjects.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Look, I'm a big fungus fan. A fungiphile, if you will. So the odds of my giving any well-researched and well-plotted book about mushrooms and their ilk less than three stars is pretty slim. But that doesn't mean that I'm just gonna fling stars about willy-nilly, no, to get those last two stars, you've gotta put in some work.

Doug Bierend put in all the work.

This book isn't just pro-fungus, it's pro-feminist, it's pro-queer, it's anti-racist, and it's all from the view of the fungal community that aims to do their best to bring mushrooms to the masses and to change the world from the inside out. Which makes sense, because mushrooms themselves operate on an inside-out sort of scheme. They're in everything, everywhere, all the time; their hyphae can exist in places even the hardiest animals cannot, and they literally hold it all together, from soil to ecosystems. So perhaps it's no surprise that fungi would attract a community in the strongest sense of the word: communal, communist (without all the baggage).

Bierend does an excellent job of opening up that world to the layperson, because it's the layperson who will benefit most from more readily available fungi in their lives, be it food, fermentation, or materials science. He actually enters into each of the communities promoting fungal growth (pun intended) and works with the people at the forefront of the movement - sometimes literally working for and with them. And the journey is a treat, the education a joy. In Search of Mycotopia is a long read but a pleasant one, meandering from one cause to the next like hyphae between roots, and bringing us all a little closer all the while.

Where do I even begin with Doug Bierend's brilliant book? It's so hard to believe that the world of fungi has been so foreign to us for so long. It's only recently that we've discovered that it is neither plant nor animal, that it is prevalent in every step of the ground we trod upon, and that it just might save the world. With the new wave of understanding comes the acts to demystify our mushroom friends, to decriminalize their long misunderstood healing powers, and to get them in as many hands as we possibly can. Bierend talks about everyone from Paul Stamets to William Padilla-Brown to the ever-important citizen scientist (that could be you!). Bierend's book is awash in passion and awe and offers a hope that we may just be able to clean up our past mistakes, to change our future enough to save our very unique planet.

In Search of Mycotopia
Citizen Science, Fungi Fanatics, and the Untapped Potential of Mushrooms
Doug Bierend
Pages: 336 pages
Size: 6 x 9 inch
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Pub. Date: March 10, 2021
ISBN:9781603589796
**This is an ARC provided by NetGalley for book reviews.**

Fungi, Citizen Science, and Mycoculture

A journalist goes on a tour to find the beginnings and diversity of fungi counterculture and mycological movements. He meets citizen scientists, ecologists, entrepreneurs, researchers, enthusiasts, cultivators, and fungi growers to generate a comprehensive and vivid account of the modern mycological universe. Fans of the recent Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life should find this enthusiastic romp across mycofestivals and underground mycoculture laboratories.

The first thing you notice about the book is Bierend’s vivid usage of alliteration in describing the world of fungi along with its people. Secondly, the book is a cornucopia of interesting fungi-related terms with the prefix ‘myco-’. Fungi are everywhere, connected to everything. You can be an ‘anarchomycologist’ working to disrupt the capitalist chain by helping communities grow shrooms, cultivate strains in homegrown labs, and generate a communal interest in fungi bringing local communities together. The book follows the stories of many such entrepreneurs. Mycelial metaphors will follow you often as you meet foresters who use mycoremediation processes in forests suffering from fires or in clean up of groundwater pollution or brewers and fermenters using yeast to make the art of fermentation accessible to everyone. We are introduced to the Chilean mycologist Giuliana Furci’s Fundacion Fungi and their work in using fungi to modulate environmental policies in Chile. A fine example of translating science into policy.

The readers get plenty of introductory information about the kingdom fungi along with various types of mushrooms, their cellular structure, their physical appearance, their uses, identification, and their role in folklore and cultures (called ethnomycology). The fascinating world of slime molds and their complex behavior get a nod too in the book.

There is something for every fungi enthusiast in this book. Even though the bulk of the fungi movements and people you meet here are based in America it opens a whole new dimension of the citizen science world for you to explore.

This book is an enthusiastic dive into the weird and wonderful world of mycology -- professional and amateur alike. It's packed with fascinating insight into these bizarre lifeforms, and the ways ardent fungal friends are learning from them. Of particular interest, is the ways these creatures' interactions with their environment may be harnessed to heal some of the damage humans have caused to the environment. Not only that, but the enthusiasts are as interesting as their projects.
Doug Bierend's prose is compelling, and highly readable, making the information within really spark the imagination.

Highly recommended for anyone looking for a good nature or science-related non-fiction read, especially anyone else on the mycology train.

"In Search Of Mycotopia" is a book that I have been looking for, for sometime now. I am currently a Biochemistry major with a minor in Environmental Sciences, with a HUGE fascination with fungi. I have read many books concerning the topic, and most are either much to simple to fully appreciate this amazing (as the book references) "Queer-dom", while others are far to advanced or scientific for a casually interested reader to pick up and delve into the realm of fungi. This book however is a wonderful bridge between the two worlds. While it is a bit more on the scientific side, it covers all of the topics I would hope for a book about fungi to cover. From home cultivation, mycoremediation, conservation, fungal medicines, mushroom farms, bio-pesticides, mycology-phobia and more, this book is amazing for introducing one into the many various potential uses and work that is currently being done with fungi.

I also personally really enjoyed this book, as many of the books about mushrooms that are out either focus on the East Coast, or Washington and Oregon. However, this author told more of the mushroom stories and revivals happening in Utah and Colorado, areas that I have always been supremely interested in hearing about the fungal work going on in these areas, as I lived in Salt Lake City, Utah for 20 years, and currently reside in Denver for the past 5 years. It was amazing to read about the work being put into documenting the fungal diversity at the NHMU and how it is being built 100% from scratch by dedicated mycologists. I am extremely excited to try and attempt to add specimens to this growing collection now!

Overall, I think this is a great book for someone who knows little about mushrooms and fungi in particular, and a great entry way into the complex workings of the hyphen world below our feet, and the many partial and sustainable uses that these glorious organisms can provide.

This intriguing and educational book tells us about many different groups of people who cultivate or seek mushrooms and other fungi. Some because they can sell edible mushrooms, ideally those which have digested free leavings like coffee grounds. Some people have decided to study the microbiology of fungi; how they spread and digest material, how they help hosts such as the Dutch Elm Beetle get established in trees. Foresters are replanting mushroom spawn in burnt forests to help new trees gain nutrients as they grow. Lichen, for which group the term symbiotic was coined; extremophile fungi from a salt lake; edible fungi which the grower ruefully considers are farming people to help them spread. The foremost mycologist in Chile, a lady who was told by Dr Jane Goodall that she was in the same place with fungi as Goodall was when she started working with chimps. And to persevere.

Festivals and foragers, farmers and foresters. A great spread of people and events. You will be inspired to download iNaturalist and start learning and uploading.

I red an e-ARC from Net Galley. No illustrations. This is an unbiased review.

Notes p232 - 313 in my ARC, the index was yet to come.

Mushrooms are hardcore. They turn death into life. Some of them are delicious; some of them can clean up hazardous waste. (Don’t get them confused. The wrong one could turn life into death.)

In Search of Mycotopia is a rollicking tour of the science of fungi and the fittingly from-the-ground-up communities of people who grow them. Like any good science writer, the author mixes a modicum of salty language (the first of a few f-bombs is on page 3), humor, and descriptions that are just technical enough to get the point across. And he doesn’t flinch at erudite but expressive vocabulary, making me feel smarter not only from learning about fungi but also by remembering—and learning—rarely-seen words. (I didn’t know duff, tarn, and lots of fungus-related terms. I find this delightful. Readers who would yeet Foucault’s Pendulum will occasionally want a good dictionary.)

Beyond the science of fungi, Bierend focuses on the people and organizations who have come together to promote knowledge of mycology, and the multifarious modes in which they’ve learned to function together. That’s what I found most fascinating by the end: people who appreciate mushrooms and the threads of mycelia from which they sprout tend to take life tips from the subject of their fascination.

This book would shine on an undergrad syllabus for Science and Society.

I am grateful to the authors, the publisher, and NetGalley for a free advance review copy.

Mushrooms aren't just about mushrooms but forest management, ecology, research and medicine and endless other functions. As a fungi forager and identifier in Canada and the Balkans, this book is right up my alley. We NEED fungi for survival and ecosystem balance. I am always amazed at the differing viewpoints on fungi and knowledge in general in Europe vs. Canada...there is a certain reluctance in the latter to delve. It seems that fungi are untouchable, a bit scary, though as the author says here, "only about 3% of named mushrooms can kill". So, many people avoid the topic altogether. Though fungi fascination is not new, mycology in general hasn't grown in ways other fields have. It is hard to believe that fungi was not even classified as a kingdom of life until 1969! Most of the action happens under the ground so is challenging to study.

I appreciate that the author discusses various "experts" from scientists to lay people who have devoted themselves to foraging and identifying in the field. He takes us on a scientific journey from rapid hyphal growth to ballistospory (spore release) to how they and what they feed, fly agaric legends, traditions, medicine and food, recognition of fungi alongside flora and fauna in Chile, genetic sequencing, ethnomycology, substrate to the future of mycology. One of my favourite quotes from this book is fungi are "the egg in the cake". So very descriptive and memorable. That the orchid seeds need fungus to germinate is fascinating! You will find a ton of information like this throughout.

This is an excellent book especially for those in the field or want to be, not for those with just a mild interest in fungi as it is very scientific and goes deeper than most. And I'm glad it does! There is so much to learn and in my opinion no other field could possibly be more enthralling.

My sincere thank you to Chelsea Green Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this fascinating book in exchange for an honest review. Much appreciated.

This is a very deep dive into all things mushroom related. While it is very, very science-heavy, it also profiles all kinds of fascinating people involved in mushrooms in all kinds of ways. The diversity of people and personalities is really interesting, and you'll likely end up knowing far more about mushrooms than you could have imagined. I have to admit that my mushroom experiences have been mostly relegated to foraging and cooking wild mushrooms, along with making the occasional spore print. My 20 year old daughter is quite a mushroom lover though and even has a Minnesota mycology twitter page and Instagram account for her wild mushroom photography and identification. She's also quite counterculture and I know she's love some of the people and projects profiled here. It's a shame this book won't be published until March or I'd add it to her Christmas presents.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

If the Covid 19 lockdown taught us anything, it taught us to be deeply appreciative of the natural world. While we have been unable to travel or return to normal, nature has provided a much needed respite, almost a cure in itself. Here Bierend explore the often overlooked and misunderstood world of fungus and its important place in our ecosystem

*This book was received as an Advanced Reader's copy from NetGalley.

Mushrooms are fascinating. They're delicious, dangerous, life-altering, and so many more things depending on what variety you come into contact with. As a child I remember happily searching through the wood for morels; a treat in the spring. Now, aside from what I can get in the grocery store I have to be content with what I find at local farmers market (I'm just not brave enough to eat the honey mushrooms out of my yard).

But enough about my fungi forays; let's talk about the book. Beirend pulls together a lot about fungi and the community that surrounds it in this book. In fact, as much as you'll learn about the various mushrooms and fungi in the book, you'll learn more about the people that make up the community. From sections on DNA sequences to sections on Intersectionality, it really does cover the makeup of mushrooms.

Some of the book is science heavy (as in genes, etc.) and other is social-science heavy (the advent of POC and LGBTQ groups coming together to celebrate a love of fungi). He explores the different festivals out there, and the innovations in science that are happening because of mushrooms (you might have heard of the oil eating one). While everyone is familiar with mushrooms, comparatively there is not a lot of study done around them when you look at the study that's been done on much of the other natural world.

What I was really taken with in this book, was the inclusion of all the different groups and 'radical' people taking an interest in mycology. Citizen Scientists are abundant, especially in this field, and that makes it really approachable. While I might not have understood all of the specific scientific terms in the DNA sequencing chapter, the book was still approachable because of all the other areas it touched on. But especially of the people and groups that drive this change and science forward.

Really interesting book; I used the note feature in my kindle for the first time while reading just because there was so much I wanted to remember later and explore.

Review by M. Reynard 2020