best books about mushrooms

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• Original post title: “[General] What books are crucial for a beginning cultivator?”
• Original post date: March 12, 2018
• Poster wants to know what books to read as a beginning cultivator wanting to grow edible mushrooms
• One user recommends “The Mushroom Cultivator” by Paul Stamets, “Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms” by Paul Stamets, and “Mycelium Running” by Paul Stamets as the “triumvirate of Stamets’ modules”
• Another user recommends “The Essential Guide to Cultivating Mushroom” by Stephen Russell as a beginner-friendly option
• Other users suggest various online resources such as shroomery and Reddit communities for mushroom cultivation
• Different methods and techniques for cultivating mushrooms are discussed, including the laundry basket tek and using 5-gallon buckets
• Oyster mushrooms are recommended for beginners
• Straw must be pasteurized and spawn must be purchased to grow mushrooms using some methods
• A premade kit is suggested for those who want to try growing mushrooms on their kitchen table
• One user comments that books are indispensable because ink on tree pulp lasts almost indefinitely
• The recommended books are available for download because links are ephemeral
• One user claims they did not need books and mastered a technique with the help of online resources after reading over one tek
• Karma for each relevant response is listed:
  • First recommendation: 23 karma
  • Thanks for the links comment: 2 karma
  • Comment thanking user for links: 1 karma
  • Comment about using online resources: 3 karma
  • Comment suggesting a beginner-friendly book: 4 karma.

• Title: “Recommendations for mushroom identification books.”
• URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/mycology/comments/salyio/recommendations_for_mushroom_identification_books/
• Submitted 2 years ago in the subreddit r/mycology.
• Post has 6 points.

Comments:

• First comment (4 karma): “Mushrooms of Ontario and Eastern Canada” by George Barron is a nice field guide. Suitable for beginners and intermediate foragers.
• Second comment (1 karma): Recommends “Mushrooms of the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada” by Timothy J. Baroni.
• Third comment (1 karma): User mentions “Peterson guide.” They have the older one from maybe the 90’s, which is useful. They really like the hand-drawn pictures.
• Fourth comment (1 karma): User plans to buy the “Mushrooms of the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada” guide before next mushroom season.

Discussion:

• The original poster wants to get a book for mushroom identification as a gift for their boyfriend in Ontario.
• The two books recommended are “Mushrooms of Ontario and Eastern Canada” by George Barron and “Mushrooms of the Northeastern United States and Eastern Canada” by Timothy J. Baroni.
• The books mentioned are suitable for beginners and intermediate foragers.
• The Peterson guide is also mentioned as a helpful resource.
• Hand-drawn images are preferred by some Redditors over photos because they can emphasize all the important features that would typically be found.
• It’s recommended to have many books (with photos and hand-drawn images) for cross-referencing.

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1. Growing Gourmet & Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets

   • Comprehensive guide to growing mushrooms
   • Written by a well-known mycologist and pioneer in edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation techniques
   • In-depth information on all aspects of mushroom growing based on years of knowledge and experience
   • Troubleshooting guide and tips and tricks included
   • 500+ photos and illustrations to take you through each stage of cultivation
   • Growth parameters for 31 species of mushrooms
   • 592 pages

2. The Essential Guide to Cultivating Mushrooms by Stephen Russel

   • Easy to read, beginner-friendly book
   • Three easy-to-follow sections: Basics for Beginners, Intermediate Methods, and Advanced Methods
   • Lots of color photographs, diagrams, and illustrations
   • Detailed step by step guides and tips
   • Provides practical information on growing shiitake, oyster, lion’s mane, maitake, and portobello mushrooms at home
   • Covers more advanced mushroom growing techniques including creating grain spawn from scratch, making supplemented sawdust fruiting blocks, and building a fruiting chamber
   • 280 pages

3. Mycelium Running by Paul Stamets

   • Explores the role mushrooms play in our environment and their unique uses
   • Focuses on why and how to grow mushrooms outdoors
   • Provides practical information for beginner to intermediate growers
   • Involves less technical methods of growing mushrooms
   • Provides information for gardeners and permaculture farmers
   • “Manual for healing the earth through mushroom cultivation”
   • More than 300 glossy full-color photographs
   • 356 pages

4. Radical Mycology by Peter McCoy

   • 650-page book by Peter McCoy, a self-taught mycologist with over 20 years of experience
   • In-depth introduction to fungi full of exciting ideas and practical information
   • Encompasses all aspects of mycology
   • Focuses on human relationships with fungi
   • Covers new ways to develop and maximize the use of fungi
   • Practical advice on making, recycling, or sourcing low-cost supplies and equipment
   • Detailed information on “regenerative natural mushroom farming,” the science of mycoremediation, and psychoactive mushrooms
   • Extensive resource lists, appendices, and references
   • 1386 upvotes

5. Mushroom Cultivation by Richard Bray

   • Provides comprehensive information

• A Reddit user from the North East of England asked for book recommendations for aspiring mycologists, stating that field guides and autobiographies would be helpful.
• One user suggested The Complete Mushroom Hunter by Gary Lincoff, stating that it is one of the best out there, and the National Audubon society field guide to north american mushrooms, claiming that it has more photos than any other book out there.
• Another user recommended looking at the wiki page (https://www.reddit.com/r/Ascomycete/wiki/index) for additional book recommendations and resources.
• A third user recommended Paul Stamets’ book Mycelium Running.
• Another user recommended finding a local club and asking for recommendations that are good to one’s location.
• The user who recommended Stamets’ book also mentioned “psilocybin mushrooms of the world” book, but then corrected themselves, stating they had looked it up incorrectly.
• Another user recommended finding a local mycology club and attending meetings to learn more about mycology.

Overall, the webpage contains several relevant book recommendations for aspiring mycologists, including The Complete Mushroom Hunter by Gary Lincoff, The National Audubon society field guide to north american mushrooms, and Paul Stamets’ book Mycelium Running. The webpage also recommends looking at a separate wiki page for additional book recommendations and finding a local mycology club to join.

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• Mushrooms have been used in meals and extracts for their unique flavors and medicinal properties for centuries in the Eastern world
• Mushrooms are getting a lot of attention in the Western world for culinary and medicinal purposes
• A book is one of the best ways for beginners to learn about mushrooms
• Several excellent books are available on mushroom identification, growing, farming, and medicinal use
• Online courses can accompany a book to learn mushroom-growing process step-by-step
• Top 20 best mushroom books list on the webpage is a combination of different categories of mushroom books, which includes books regarding fungi and their impact on the world, mushroom growing, identification, and medicinal properties
• Fantastic Fungi by Paul Stamets is an informative book written by ecologists, doctors, explorers, and fungi experts that explores how fungi can help restore ecosystems and buildup health
• Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake is a prizewinning New York Time Bestseller that explores the impact of fungi on ecosystems and the natural world
• Fungarium by Ester Gaya is a beautifully illustrated guide to understanding fungi, fungus’ crucial role in the ecosystem, and fungi that have influenced human history
• The Mycocultural Revolution by Peter McCoy is a hybrid of manifesto and manual that provides fundamental knowledge and skills for identifying, cultivating, and appreciating the diversity of fungi, mycoremediation, and mushroom-based crafts, among other topics
• The Little Book of Mushrooms by Alex Dorr is a comprehensive guide to 75 of the world’s most unusual mushrooms, including their culinary and medicinal uses
• All That the Rain Promises and More by David Arora is a comprehensive pocket guide for 200 mushroom species found in the Western world and provides illustrations and practical checklists to identify mushrooms for mushroom foragers
• Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora is another mushroom field guide for identifying more than 2000 mushroom species and contains comprehensive identification keys and humorous observations, making it enjoyable for mushroom foragers
• The Complete Mushroom Hunter by Gary Lincoff is an illustrated guide to foraging, harvesting, and enjoying wild mushrooms, and provides information on toxic look-alikes and the history of mushroom foraging
• Mushroom identification books have fun anecdotes and practical identification tips and are small enough to take while foraging
• A brief history of mushroom foraging, equipment needs, common, wild edible, and medicinal mushroom identification guide, where to find wild mushrooms and their preparation, and recipes are provided in the complete mushroom hunter by Gary Lin

• The webpage is from Reddit and posts a question from 2 years ago, asking for book recommendations on the topic of mushrooms.
• User posts a comment with recommendations for books on various topics such as scientific, culinary, and cultivation books.
• A user recommends The Way Through the Woods: On Mushrooms and Mourning and The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins with a karma of 6.
• The Audubon society guide is recommended for a general reference with a karma of 1.
• The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi: Exploring the Microscopic World in Our Forests, Homes, and Bodies is a recommended light reading with a karma of 1.
• Weber and Webster’s Introduction to Fungi is recommended as a text with a karma of 1.
• There are not many good cultivation books, Stamets is recommended but outdated with a karma of 1.
• Tons of culinary books are available, picking a decent wildcrafting book is recommended.
• It is suggested to get an identification guide specific to your area that is recently published and has a significant number of species.
• Link to a document with additional resources is provided in the comments section.
• A few species books are recommended by a user with a karma of 2, including MB Ellis to Microfungi on land Plants and the other book: Microfungi on Misclaneus substrates to get to genus, and Bjorn Wergens Books series on Pyrenomycetes. Furthermore, AscoFrance is recommended but you need to have your materials together to participate at their level.
• A user with a karma of 1 suggests using Amanitaceae.org as it is far better than anything else and updated.
• One may check out the monograph section which offers free downloadable texts, monographic websites, and monographic books/publications. Furthermore, a user who has a karma of 1 mentions that they have not gone through all these books, but they have a lot of them so that they might offer a review in case one wants to know about it before purchasing.
• Lastly, a user recommends Fungi of Temperate Europe, a free resource with comprehensive information on various mushroom species.

Here are the notes on the webpage:

• A Reddit user asked for book recommendations on cultivating shrooms or fungi in general
• The post was 2 years old and had 2 upvotes
• Several users recommended various book titles on growing mushrooms as well as field guides on wild actives
• The recommended titles include:
  • The Psilocybin Mushroom Bible
  • Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World
  • Psilocybin Chef Cookbook
  • Fantastic Fungi
  • Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Growers Guide
  • Food of the Gods
  • The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide
  • Sacred Mushrooms and the Law
  • Psilocybin Mushroom Legal Defenses
• The Psilocybin Mushroom Bible was recommended by multiple users and described as a must-have for cultivation, focusing on PF Tek to bulk substrate with some extraction info
• Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World by Stamets was referred to as the quintessential field guide for wild actives
• Psilocybin Chef Cookbook was recommended as a good source for recipes and extraction methods, and the authors are the same as those of The Psilocybin Mushroom Bible
• Fantastic Fungi, a book by Stamets, was highly recommended and praised for its content as well as beautiful hardcover design
• Psilocybin: Magic Mushroom Growers Guide by Terence McKenna and his brother Dennis was called a must-have for any shroom library for its historical importance, although it is from the 70s
• Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna was another recommendation, as was anything by TMac
• The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide by James Fadiman was recommended for its research on other psychedelics and shrooms, and it was described as the first book that explored microdosing
• Sacred Mushrooms and the Law was recommended as a concise but thorough look at the subject of shrooms and legality
• Psilocybin Mushroom Legal Defenses was recommended for its information on how to handle oneself from the moment they’re approached by law enforcement to the trial process

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