Mushrooms

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Customer reviews

review by: date: 2008-11-13 rating:
Definitive reference book
Until I bought this book I was afraid to cook wild mushrooms in case I poisoned people. The photographs and clear descriptions of the characteristics of different fungi in this marvelous book are so good that I now feel confident to pick a number of different mushrooms and I haven't made anyone ill, yet! The author also, helpfully, points out what the fungi taste like as there are many that are edible, but not worth eating. Recommended.

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review by: Giles date: 2008-10-21 rating:
If you only buy one field ID book, get this one.
Like many people, the original edition of this book was my first field ID book on fungi. Being so familiar with it's structure, it is really easy for me to locate something I've found in Roger Phillips' book. The simple key at the beginning usually gets you straight to the right section of the book to identify your mushroom. Happily for me, the structure of the original is preserved in this new edition.

As I have progressed with my mycophilia over the years I have acquired most of the readily available field guides on the market. This is the inevitable curse of the mushroom hunter. There are always a number of species covered in each new guide that do not appear in the others. I am always seeking the one perfect field guide. The truth is, you often need to check a particular specimen in several, but I always come back to the Phillips.

The key to this book's success must be the consistently high quality of the photographs. He is a fantastic photographer and despite (or perhaps because of)his insistence on removing the specimens to a studio, these images capture accurately the essential details of each species. Compare the perhaps more erudite Encyclopedia by M. Jordan, where each example is photographed in situ; I find I am often hardly able to recognise the fungus in front of me from the image captured in the shifting natural light of Jordan's less adept photography. Phillips maintains his attention to quality images in this new edition, with many new entries to the guide.

Hats off to this most excellent of mushroom books and its author.

P.S. If there is one perfect book on fungi ID, relevant to the UK, then J.Breitenbach and F.Kranzlin "Fungi of Switzerland" would be the one. However, this is now in 6 weighty tomes at about £90 a volume. Not exactly a portable field guide then.

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review by: date: 2008-10-17 rating:
Brilliant reference book
Excellent book, clear descriptions and photographs of thousands of fungi. A must for anyone serious about fungi.

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review by: date: 2008-10-16 rating:
Good, but not a field guide
As the other reviewers have said this is a very good book. It has very good photos and descriptions for virtually everything you'll come across in the UK. But it is too big to fit in your pocket (I put it in my rucksack), and it lacks a key for aiding identification. It is a brilliant book nonetheless, I'm just waiting for a decent pocket sized book with key, so I can leave this one at home to bring samples back to when I can't quite work out what something is. Until then this is one of the best books for those who are serious about identifying mushrooms, for fun, for eating, or for recording species.


review by: date: 2007-10-16 rating:
The Best Buy Yet
For someone who appreciates flora and fauna AND good books - This is a fantastic buy. As a relative beginner to the world of fungi, this book ticks all the boxes for a reference book (so probably a bit big for the field). There are loads of information (basic and advanced) on each fungus and of particular interest to me: The common name of most of the fungi is included. Our fungi have been named with elaborate and humorous names which I find easier to remember than the Latin name. I mainly have a culinary interest in mushrooms and this has great notes on edibility and the fact that you need to know which ones CAN'T be eaten, so congratulations on a truly great piece of work.

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