The MykoWeb Bookstore

Mushrooms Demystified
by David Arora

Mushrooming books do not get better than this! If you are interested in mushrooms (and why else would you be here?) and you don't have this book, you should buy it now! The book has the best introductory material about mushrooming that I have seen. It covers such topics as "what is a mushroom", names and classification, collecting mushrooms, mushroom habitats, and mushroom identification. Mushrooms Demystified is well illustrated with color and b/w photos, although more color photos would be nice. But the heart of the book is the great descriptions and discussion of each species. Over 600 species are given a full description and over 2000 are included in the excellent keys. Mushrooms Demystified is witty, well written, and accurate. It is most useful in the Western United States, but mushroomers everywhere will find much of interest here. A classic!

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North American Boletes
by Alan Bessette, William C. Roody, & Arleen Bessette

Buy North American Boletes (hardback)

Mushrooms of Northeastern North America
by Alan Bessette, Arleen Bessette, and David Fischer

Over 1500 species are included in the extensive keys in this volume, with over 600 species given a full description. The others are given a mini-description right in the keys. These short descriptions can make the keys harder to follow, but it is nice to have some comments on the species not given the full treatment. Each of the species given a full description is illustrated by a small but good quality photograph. One complaint about the book is how the photographs are grouped together by type (e.g. all agarics), separate from the descriptions. Ideally the photographs should near the descriptions, but here the publisher has not even provided a page number for the description from the photograph or a page number for the photograph from the description. Also, the keys are difficult and almost impossible to use. Still, this is a quality, comprehensive guide to the fungi of northeastern North America and serious mushroomers living in that area will find this book essential.

Buy Mushrooms of Northeastern North America (paperback)

The Encyclopedia of Fungi of Great Britain and Europe
by Michael Jordan

I first saw this excellent book at an Oxford, England bookstore and bought it immediately. The Encyclopedia of Fungi, a large book, covers over 1,000 species. Each page has a description and color photo of three species. Both the descriptions and photographs are very well done. There is good introductory material and keys to the genera. One very nice feature that other mushrooms guides should emulate is the chart of colors. With this chart of 88 color swatches, if the author says the fungus is "luteous", you don not have to guess at the color. Even though I live in the Western United States, I still find this book very useful. Many of the common and distinctive mushrooms are found in temperate areas all over the northern hemisphere.

Buy The Encyclopedia of Fungi (Hardback)

Buy The Encyclopedia of Fungi (Paperback)