The Magic of Mushrooms: Fungi in Folklore, Superstition and Traditional Medicine

Kew

by Sandra Lawrence

Explore the wonderful world of some of the most incredible natural forms on our planet—fungi.

At the center of countless superstitions, folkloric tales, and magical beliefs, as well as appearing in recipes and medicines both traditional and modern, mushrooms have incredible powers. The Magic of Mushrooms shows that from saving lives to expanding the mind, the potential of these fascinating organisms should not be underestimated.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Science, Folklore, Plants, Mythology, Audiobook

Audible Audio

Published February 21, 2023

Reviews

[Phoenix Perpetuale · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have listened to The Magic of Mushrooms: Fungi in Folklore, Superstition and Traditional Medicine on Audible. To my surprise, I found a lot of Folklore about mushrooms from Lithuania as I am. It was informative and knowledgeable.
For other people maybe it is better to read a paper version because pictures of 🍄

[Muriel (The Purple Bookwyrm) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice and very colourful book about fungi in culture and folklore. The book is divided in different thematic chapters (healing fungi, poisonous fungi, trippy fungi, etc...) and presents both general information about the kingdom as a whole and more precise information about different species of mushroom or mould.

I would've appreciated a little more mycology, but the book otherwise contained what was advertised in the title, and the illustrations were really beautiful – not to say inspiring! It's definitely a solid publication for fungi and folklore fans.

[Cav · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Magic of Mushrooms was a decent short read.

I am a fan of mycology, and always looking to expand my knowledge base. So I'll read just about any book on mushrooms and mycology I can get my hands on.

Author Sandra Lawrence is a freelance journalist and writer, writing, over the past 20-odd years, hundreds of articles; for all the broadsheets and over 60 magazines and journals.

Sandra Lawrence:



Lawrence opens the book with a good intro. She's got a decent writing style that shouldn't struggle to hold the reader's attention.
The book also contains a plethora of illustrations and photos that add some valuable context to the writing here. I've included just a few of them here.




Some more of the material Lawrence covers here includes:
• The "mummy's curse"
• Poisoning by mushrooms
• Lichen dyes
• Penicillin
• Fairy rings
• Fungus in food
• Fungus in art
• Fungus and crime fiction
• "Magic" mushrooms; psilocybin
• Fungi in the garden
• The grim side of fungus
• The future of fungus





***********************

I enjoyed The Magic of Mushrooms. It was an easy, informative, and entertaining short read.
4 stars.

[River · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Magic of Mushrooms is now the fifth fungal book I've read, and honestly, it might be the best introduction to mushrooms of all of them. While Entangled Life is well written and incredibly interesting, it is no doubt an intimidating read, often too dense for its own good with scientific jargon and difficult concepts. Sandra Lawrence takes a very different approach here though, rather than trying to write an identification guide or rigorous pop-sci book, she has instead written a broader guide. Here the cultural and historical signifance of various species is placed over pure scientific interest, though it never delves into new-age mysticism, always prioritising indigenous beliefs. At the same time, Lawrence uses the science to explain many of these beliefs or effects surrounding various species, meaning the book encompasses a surprising range of information.

While the writing itself is good, with information well ordered and the whole thing being very readable, the true draw of Magic of Mushrooms is the presentation. The design of the everything here is beautiful, with high quality paper and beautiful illustrations throughout. These images are almost all from historical archives, many being from the 18th or 19th centuries. This is a double-edged sword though, as while it's interesting seeing the various artistic styles and how our interpretations have changed since, many of the pictures are just not accurate to the fungus they're supposed to be depicting. That would summarise my main complaint here, there are several aspects to this book that require you be near a search engine whilst reading, as it feels more like a brief primer on interesting ideas rather than a rigorous exploration of any one of them. If you or someone you know is interested in mycology, this is definitely worth a buy, but expect to do plenty more research once you're finished.

[M Aghazarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good-- good balance of folktale and actual science. Somewhat redundant but I imagine this book was meant to be more of a coffee table book rather than read cover to cover. I'll have to check out the print sometime but I appreciated this audiobook.

[Kriste ☾Papartis ir knyga☾ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! Nesitikėjau, kad vos 200 puslapių sutalpins tiek daug apie Lietuvos pagonių dievus ir jų ryšį su grybais 😳🍄😍 Ar sužinojau naujų dalykų? Be abejo. Tik gaila, kad nesikapstė giliau – tikrai būtų buvę dar įdomiau!

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mushrooms shall inherit the earth so better start making friends with them now. This book is a good place to start: accessible and informative but not dumbed down.

[Amber Jahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. From inspirational quotes on the importance of storytelling/ folk tales, to hope for the cure for cancer - I was open to knowledge/legends with every chapter. The illustrations were cute making me realize how much art is missing from my current literature.

Will be keeping this book for the shelf and maybe even looking at the bibliography for some more recs in the future.

[Peter Etherington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Visually stunning book with lots of interesting fungi lore.

[Christina · Rating 5 out of 5]

"If in any doubt, ask. Folklore is best when it doesn't kill you."

[Ryan Fohl · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is really just an excuse to publish all these beautiful mushroom pictures together. There wasn’t as much discussion of culture, or mushrooms, as I’d hoped. And the author never missed a chance to make some unsupported pseudoscience health claim about each mushroom. Useless.

There are a lot of funny mushroom names from around the world. Like calling a puffball mushroom an elf fart.

What I learned: The German word for toad stool is krötenstuhl. Phallus impudicus is Latin for shameless penis.
Litmus testing comes from the old Norse word litmosi literally “dye-moss.” Ergot poisoning can lead to fingers and toes falling off. Beatrix Potter was well know in her day as a scientific illustrator of funguses.

[Lenno Vranken · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Bleek, vlezig, alsof de vergane doden met een groeiende geest weer tot leven werden gewekt.'
-Percy Bysshe Shelley

Aanvankelijk had ik dit boek slechts twee sterren willen geven. Uiteindelijk ben ik toch maar voor de drie gegaan, vanwege de mooie vormgeving en de sprekende boekcover. Met alle boeken uit deze reeks op je boekenplank, lijkt het net alsof je de persoonlijke bibliotheek van een tovenaarsleerling in huis hebt! Jammer genoeg had dit boek heel veel te vertellen, en tegelijkertijd ook helemaal niks. Exact zoals alle andere edities in deze reeks!
Vergis je niet, ieder boek in deze serie is absoluut niet dun, en bevat minstens in de 200 bladzijden vol tekst en rijkelijk gekleurde illustraties. Toch lijken zowel de prenten als de tekst niks bij te brengen. Ik heb niet het gevoel dat ik veel heb geleerd over paddenstoelen na het lezen van dit boek, voornamelijk omdat er meerdere keren wordt herhaald dat de auteur geen expert is op het gebied van dit thema en de lezers daarom niet op het verkeerde been wilt brengen. Maar als je geen expert bent op een zeker gebied, ga je hier toch ook geen boek over schrijven?!
Heel teleurstellend, dit. Jammer genoeg ook mijn eigen schuld, want eigenlijk ben ik al bekend met de formule waaronder deze boeken door uitgeverij Liberero worden uitgebracht. Laat je dus zeker niet vangen wanneer je een van deze boeken in de winkel aantreft en verwacht iets nuttigs bij te leren over magie en de natuur.

[Samuel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, uhm, wow. I feel kinda gutted having to give this book 2 stars because, you know, it does have nice photos, interesting facts, and it's backed by information from Kew Gardens, an institution I have mad respect for.

But the book itself is a bit... lackluster. For starters, it could have been edited better. The pacing is all over the place and the writer has this really annoying tendency to jump from one topic or idea to the next, often mid-paragraph.

For example, in the 'case study' for Amanita virosa, one paragraph starts by talking about how Ganoderma lucidum has been used in trials as a potential antidote. Then the same paragraph tells people that they shouldn't pick blushers (Amanita rubescens) because they look like Amanita pantherina. The text then goes back to talking about the destroying angel as if nothing ever happened. I mean, what's the connection here? It's almost as if that sentence was part of a bigger paragraph, but they cut out some of the sections to make the text fit the page layout, and forgot to have an editor look over it. That would also explain the typos that keep cropping up.

Come to think of it, quite a few of the case studies don't make much sense. The chapter dedicated to how fungi were used as medicine, good luck charms or even love philters talks about all manner of species, and often it's not clear why those species are even featured there. What does honey fungus have to do with medicinal folklore? Or the amethyst deceiver? The writer doesn't tell us, so I guess we'll never know. And after a while, these little inconsistencies start chafing, to the point where it feels like I'm reading filler. If I'm reading about the use of mushrooms in traditional medicine, I want factual examples of who used x for what, not some random story about some writer who accidentally fed his friends and family poisonous mushrooms and they needed kidney transplants to live.

Also, I'm getting a bit tired of writers trying to squeeze in the fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) in any context that could potentially be explained via the 'magic mushrooms' route. Santa wears a red suit with white fur trimming because allegedly his character is based on shamans who used this mushroom in the rites — yeah nah I don't think so. The caterpillar gives Alice some fly agaric which explains why she can grow bigger or smaller and the whole book is basically just one mushroom trip — ugh, is it though? This whole "let's insert Amanita muscaria into any context that allows it" trend is becoming a bit passé, especially when you rely on speculative evidence to back it up.

Anyway, it was an ok read I guess. The book itself also looks nice and is not skimping on illustrations, and I suppose it would make a wonderful coffee table book or a present you could give to someone who's new to mycology.

For everyone else, I'd recommend reading Entangled Life instead.

[Aike · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. i listened to this as an audiobook but it's more of a coffee table book - the illustrations are absolutely beautiful, and there's not much of a narrative, it mostly trails these illustrations. i enjoyed it because it's actually a new view of mushrooms, focusing on their cultural influence instead of their scientific one, and pointing towards loads of interesting folklore tales in which they appear.
but it's also superficial, more of a starting point for the topic than a comprehensive view. would reccomend to anyone looking for this, and then recommend picking up a pdf or physical copy so you can enjoy the illustrations alongside the tales.

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, so this was an extremely well informed book and seamlessly covers many topics around fungi and its history. But for something as FASCINATING as fungi, this was incredibly dry! Cordyceps wasn’t even talked one of the the final chapters! Cmon!
I was hoping to learn more about fungi and how they are able to communicate and such. But it was really just barely touched on. So much cool information but boring.

[Vaughn Zeller · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit different from some of the other books I've read on the topic of mushrooms. Appreciated learning a bit about the folklore and history of fungi. This book was a welcome change from the more academic approach I've so far experienced.

[Kasey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, fun, and informative read. By no means a comprehensive guide to mushrooms, but a thorough skimming of the surface of a fascinating topic.

[Matt Chester · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really more of a coffee table book with how much of the allure is the beautiful illustrations of mushrooms from ancient history to more recent history, and the nature of the book to just spend a page or two on each snippet of a 'story' about a mushroom, a historical or cultural instance of it being noteworthy, and then moving onto the next one.

That said, some of those stories are really fascinating and meet the reason I picked up this book on a whim. The interesting differences between cultures whose tales were positive vs. ominous and those who ate and those who avoided was fun to read about. As was the ways that famous literary stories were based on and influenced by the work of mushrooms, from obvious like Alice in Wonderland to the less discussed role fungi had in creating the myths of haunted Egyptian tombs and modern ghost stories. Then of course the author doesn't miss the chance to connect it to modern stories: mushrooms in games like Mario and Zelda and the inspiration for the Last of Us games and TV series.

Love the ending that looks at why there's so much enthusiasm about studying the vast kingdom today for the medical, technological, environmental, and sustainable use cases. Even NASA's study of mushrooms as a nuclear radiation shield, it's all interesting.

I'll continue to love to read about, cook with, and learn about mushrooms and this was a great start for that.

[Trauermaerchen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun one. It was interesting, easy to read (despite me being insanely tired while reading) and it's a topic I haven't read much about yet so that's always appreciated.

Plus, this has some gorgeous illustrations. They quite improved the reading experience.

Anyway, my favourite part was of course the dick mushroom. No surprises there. I always love a dick joke, especially when it's connected to witchcraft.

I will say that I found some of the structural choices to be a bit odd but that's really my only complaint. For the most part it was fine anyway and it's not like it made the book hard to understand.

4.5/5⭐

[Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this. It's very informative and has a lot of fun random facts like the multiple names of mushrooms from different countries. The myths and legends are fascinating as I never realize how much mushrooms influence or part of our culture. Mushrooms are actually my favorite, and this was just awesome.

[Erin Grigson Baylis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about mushrooms. It's in the title.
But it's also about pop culture and geography and history.
The illustrations were beautiful and the writing was great, particularly for the everyday reader, not the fungal expert.
If you like pretty pictures and have any interest in mushrooms, try this book.
8/10 I don't eat mushrooms, but they are fascinating.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Folklore, science, and vintage illustrations. What more could this old anthropology major want in a natural history book? A good editor, that's what. The numerous typos detracted from an otherwise lovely volume.

[Sly Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

On top of being filled with a lot of interesting information, this book is absolutely gorgeous with most of that coming from the illustrations on the various fungi featured throughout. They help lend a fairy tale like quality on a book that could have felt very dry and boring without them.

[Chris Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great little book about fungi. It covers the history of fungi throughout cultures and is illustrated with fantastic fungi drawings from over the centuries.
It’s a bit light in details but still a fascinating book.

[Jonathan D McMillan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful wood be better in hardcopy

Easy to read and full of fungi facts. The illustrations are great and dovetail nicely with the text. This would be better to read in a physical form.

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

So informative. Decorated with fun illustrations and loaded with fun facts (my favorite!) I haven’t read something non-fic ~for fun~ in quite some time and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed this! Mushrooms have quite the story to tell, are you listening?? 👀🍄

[Chris Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting little book on mushrooms. Neither a compolete history or a field guide it sits in a nice place of telling you interesting things with no expectation you will go out and try and find them.

[HopeF · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fun read whether you like learning about mushrooms, folklore or both.

[Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book full of interesting mushroom lore.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful collection of photos and illustrations, very interesting read!