Mycophilia

Revelations From the Weird World of Mushrooms

By: Eugenia Bone

Narrated by: Aimee Jolson

Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's Summary

In Mycophilia, accomplished food writer and cookbook author Eugenia Bone examines the role of fungi as exotic delicacy, curative, poison, and hallucinogen, and ultimately discovers that a greater understanding of fungi is key to facing many challenges of the 21st century. Engrossing, surprising, and packed with up-to-date science and cultural exploration, Mycophilia is part narrative and part primer for foodies, science buffs, environmental advocates, and anyone interested in learning a lot about one of the least understood and most curious organisms in nature.

Download the accompanying reference guide.

©2011 Eugenia Bone (P)2014 Audible Inc.

Absolutely awful, insufferable, racist author

This is the worst book I have ever purchased. The majority of this book is the author describing people in an insufferable wanna-be rollingstone-esque tone, focusing on people’s dress, demeanor, and her judgements of them, as well as CONSTANTLY reminding you she is a New Yorker, wears all black, and doesn’t fit in with the people she’s ‘investigating’. Then it gets to the part about migrant mushroom pickers and she just goes full blown racist. I would say less than half of this book is about mushrooms and the majority of scientific discussion is glossed over or disregarded with blatant disinterest by the author herself. Unbelievably bad. STAY AWAY

What is the point of this book?

A rambling lengthy tale of Ms Bone going to look for mushrooms with other amateurs and having nice or not so nice dinners. Maybe it gets better after three hours - I had wasted enough time by then. Lengthy pointless descriptions and a lot of uninteresting detail, but not about mushrooms: about the quirks of US mushroom enthusiasts.

Returned

If you enjoy tight, informative science writing with a dash of wit, you will hate this book. This ain't Mary Roach. As other reviewers have pointed out, this book is less about mushrooms and more about the author and her supposed mushroom hunting "adventures" among the common folk. Filled with tedious, pointless details and the rambling personal observations of a person with apparently very little life experience, as I listened all I could think was "Get on with it . . ." Top that off with a narrator mispronouncing key words (repeatedly pronouncing the 's' in Illinois, even after the author made a joke about how doing so identified her to the locals as an interloper), and you've got one big fail. I rarely give up completely on an audio book, but this one was a waste of time.

Lots of interesting stories

Plenty of interesting stories and information but it doesn't go into many details on particular subjects like growing or identification.

Very interesting at every turn

I don't have much to add to all the other reviews I've seen of this book. The only downside is the quality of the recording. It sounds like it was recorded on a laptop.

Not just about food

If you could sum up Mycophilia in three words, what would they be?

Solid Mushroom information

Who was your favorite character and why?

There is only the narrator, however she talks at length about the characters she has met while mushroom hunting

Have you listened to any of Aimee Jolson’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

first time listener

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I laughed out loud several times. I was also shocked and stunned by several factoids as well.

Any additional comments?

It took me a bit of time to warm up to the tone of the author. I thought that it would basically be all about food and strange mushroom people. The content is far deeper and incredibly well researched with lots of solid thinking and deduction about her own experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Keep browsing, there are better choices available

I really wanted to like this book. It does contain "some" useful information. I downloaded the audio version for a long drive. If it had been a paper version, I would have put it down.
The author uses a chatty gossipy and often condescending writing style that can most charitably be described as annoying.
Can't recommend it.

good book, many bizarre narration mistakes

this is a lovely journey into one woman’s hyperfixation on mushrooms and the places that takes her, but it has been done a disservice by the narrator who, among other strange errors, repeatedly pronounced illinois as “ill-annoys” and orchard as “orchid.” she referred to the newest version of something as the “latest incarceration of” x, and when north korean leader kim jung il appeared in the book gifting someone a box of expensive mushrooms, she called him “kim jung the second.” the editing could have been better as well, as many times the latin names of various mushrooms were preceded by a loooong pause. i’m not fussy, but all of these weird missteps distracted me from an excellent book that functioned well as both an intimate personal narrative, and as a thorough overview of the mushroom industry’s past and future.

Good book, shockingly bad narration

The book and content was good. Interesting and accessible.

But I had no idea one could become an audiobook narrator while mispronouncing so many basic English words. I don't mean the Latin names or location names (though it was clear no effort was even made to sound these out). No, I mean basic English words were said completely wrong. Reminded me of my college roommate who pronounced Viagra "vee-ah-gra".

Not for me

I thought it was going an enlightening book on mushroom identification, it was not, I was very disappointed.