"Mushrooms of Cascadia" is a fantastic resource for mushroom lovers or folks wanting to learn more about the fungi around them.

I have a few mushroom guides for foraging and this one is now my favorite. Mycology is not my strongsuit but I have found that since moving to the PNW, I am more and more interested in the fungi I see on hikes and while looking for spawning salmon. "Mushrooms of Cascadia" is a comprehensive, concise, and an engaging guide for any level of mushroom understanding. I found that the images used in this book were more helpful compared to the other guides on my shelf. This book also filled my desire for a field guide to dive a bit deeper into science, particularly with the information on mushroom genomics research, This aspect of the field particularly fascinates me but I mostly know about marine species genomic research and knowledge.

The information on collection mushroom's for science was also a great addition that stood out to me and that I enjoyed. It was interesting to learn about proper collection and handling techniques, and to compare those to what I have learned in my own field.

If you are an avid outdoors lover and frequent the PNW, this is a field guide for you!

Mushrooms of Cascadia by Michael Beug firmly fills a mushroom guide void. Its 1,000 photographs and 3,000 species is beyond the typical guide which often contains 200-300 species. Plus Beug describes how to prepare for foraging, mushroom lookalikes, foraging safety, collecting mushrooms, spore prints (which make great art, too), chemical analysis, preserving as food and DNA and reclassification which particularly grabbed my attention. He also forays into medicinal and dyeing territory.

The mushroom section highlights the mushrooms' characteristics, habitats, seasons, lookalikes, quirks and edibility. Most of Beug's favourites happen to be mine as well. Knowing the poisonous mushrooms is even more critical than knowing the choice edibles and the author makes differences crystal clear. He also includes a useful list of common names.

As an experienced forager and mycophile, I was thrilled to learn more about my favourite topic. There are constant changes in the field of mycology and new discoveries are made regularly. The generous mushroom identification section is excellent in this regard, detailing old and new classifications. The book layout is easy to follow as well.

My personal mushroom library is huge...but there is always has room for more, especially when it comes to comprehensive guides such as this. I live in both Europe and Canada, strikingly different in many ways. but this book is excellent for both. The author's conversational tone makes excellent reading and his knowledge is remarkable.

My sincere thank you to Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed Press and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this engrossing and practical book.

This is an awesome guide to the mushrooms of the region. I love how it is organized as a key. You find a mushroom and want to know what it is. By taking this one step at a time, you can key it out and figure out what you've got! Each step has a dichotomous key. You chose the next step based on the features seen on your specimen. Then, you move to the next feature and so on. When you reach the last one, you should find a photo of the mushroom you have found and its description.

The beginning part of the book talks about the biology of mushrooms a bit, and some features used to identify them. The rest of the book is composed of the keys, which you can use to key out about 3000 species! This is the type of book we used in college, in plant taxonomy classes. It's the best way to identify things, I think. If you've never used a dichotomous key, it may take some getting used to the concept. But, it does usually produce accurate identifications.

The photos are very helpful. They show exactly the features you need to see in order to identify things. There is information about each species on its landing page. You will find some info on edibility, but this is not a guide to edible fungi.

I love this book. It's a great way to get into study of the fungi of the Pacific Northwest. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Fantastic photography, tons of information, easily accessible, a great resource for people who KNOW mushrooms. For me, I found the book to be WAY over my head. No way could I use it to hunt mushrooms. I am very glad that I had the chance to read this book, because now I know that I would be much safer just buying mushrooms at my local farmer's market!

This was an absolutely delightful field guide, with an easy to use dichotomous key and great photographs. As an outdoor educator, a question I get all the time is "what's that mushroom?" And now I'm happy to say I'll finally be able to have an answer for them- or at least a field guide to teach them how to use!
I really appreciate at the end there was a list of common names, because common names vary so much I understand that adding them can be hard in the mycology world. And with so many look alikes, many different species can be grouped together. But including the list and acknowledging it's limitations is so much more helpful than leaving it off or making up common names, both things I've seen other field guides do.
I also enjoyed the emphasis on collecting specimens for science. Most mushroom field guides I've come across have a big emphasis on eating your finds, which is of course fantastic, but not all that applicable to the work that I do. But notes on proper collection techniques and storage is applicable, and not something I've come across before. And the acknowledgement that this is edition 2 out of probably many, that mycology is a vastly shifting science with the advent of genome sequencing and also a great addition, and something I'm excited to talk about with my students.
What a lovely field guide that I'm excited to take to the field!

Wow, this is the book my husband and I have been seeking for years! While there a lot of mushroom identification books out there, but they tend to be brief and abbreviated, leaving a lot of room to question in the process.

I love having the clear dichotomous key to follow, and with pictures every step of the way! We’re anticipating using this frequently in our future mushroom foraging endeavors.

Thank you so much to the author, publishers, and NetGalley for providing this advanced reader copy. This is my honest and voluntary review.

Mushrooms of Cascadia is an amazing mushroom guide and the first I've seen that has had key! A key is important in helping readers positively identify different mushrooms. Many people are afraid to consume any (including myself) because regular guides aren't as thorough with identification as this one is. I may not be from the PNW but I would love to have this book in my personal collection!

Thank you so much to the author, publisher, and net gallery for this ARC!

Mushrooms of Cascadia, Second Edition - An Illustrated Key to the Fungi of the Pacific Northwest by Michael Beug is a highly detailed, extensive and very well organised guide to mushrooms that can be found in the Pacific North West (USA)

I am fascinated by the natural world and my reading in this area is currently more focussed on the flora and fauna of the USA. ( I am ashamed to say, a lesser explored geographical area for me, but I am catching up!) and thankfully, there are fantastic botanists/ mycologists like Michael Beug who put their decades of research into a comprehensive guide that is accessible to all

Written in a personable way, the information is engaging and easy to digest

This book has a great guide for essential equipment to use when you begin your adventures into foraging and also has a few recipes to try out in the kitchen section. What I really got my teeth into, thanks to the utterly brilliant key, was the huge array of varieties and images. Absolutely wonderful!

Thank you to Netgalley, Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed Press | Ten Speed Press, Michael Beug for this very informative ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own