Simon & Schuster's Guide to Mushrooms

Rating:
Summary: Very beautiful illustrations!
Review: Another guide written by Simon and Schuster, and another success. This mushroom field guide has a significant number of species listings for decent identification. Easily equals Audubon, Peterson, and other guides in detailed descriptions, photo quality, and abundance of species listed. Over 420 in all. Each mushroom is labeled with a botanical name, since beginners should stick with Golden Guides. The mushrooms shown are intriguing, and make you ponder eating them as the night's meal. The guide also explains the edibility, quality of it, and whether it is lethal. There are also descriptions of range and habitat. Habitat is indicated by a drawing on the bottom left hand of the species page. The redundancy of the Simon and Schuster system is indicated in the text, but this has never mattered, as the system is fine for expert field guide users. The underrated history of the book is unexplained, but should not have been so.
The two press editions of the guide are different in a couple of ways. The older, Nature Series Press, has aged photos, which makes the photo quality darker. However, the brand new, revised press, done by Simon and Schuster themselves, is the best yet. The photo quality is also pristine. Any edition of this contribution to field identification will prove useful for mushroom hunters and plant experts alike.

Rating:
Summary: Not a good guide for North America
Review: Caveat: I do not own this book.

I was thinking about buying it but was put off by a comment on Dave Fischer's web page: "Simon & Schuster's Guide to Mushrooms is not a good choice for use as a field guide in North America; it is a translation of an Italian work, hence is not a very useful identification manual for this continent. It is, however, a great general-interest mushroom book, with excellent introductory information."

Amazon's great "Search inside this book" feature confirmed it. The copyright page shows "Translation of Funghi" ... "Pacioni, Giovanni", "English translation by Simon Pleasance".

Rating:
Summary: Not for beginners
Review: Execelent photos! However, the book tells you that it's o.k. to experiment with the amanita family-not a good idea when starting out or even for a pretty good mushroom hunter unless you want a one way trip through the great golden gates of heven!

Rating:
Summary: Excellent.
Review: I happen to love mushrooms and am very into identifying the ones that grow in my backyard. This book was a lot more helpful to me than any of the others I found. The beginning is extremely informative, and the species guide is huge-about 240 great pictures! No book can list every one, but this one covers a great many, especially common ones you're likely to see. Get it-it's a good buy.

Rating:
Summary: Not as informative as i had hoped it would be
Review: I think that it is a great book but it is not informative about some of the common Psilocybe species it only contains one and it isn't the most common around southern states like California, Texas, and New Mexico... Etc... Etc. One of which is Psilocybe Cubanessis.

Rating:
Summary: Visually appealing
Review: In fact, I use this as a visual reference for drawing. It gives large, clear photos of each species, and hundreds are shown.

I'm not sure how much this will help the amateur mushroom-hunter, though. It certainly won't do much for a pro. The description of each species is short and bland. The real strength of this book is the photos that show the unique features of each species, and even each specimen.

Rating:
Summary: Not for beginners
Review: This book not only has clear color pictures of over 400 different kinds of mushrooms and other fungi, it also lists habitats, seasons when the listed mushrooms grow, and edibility. The book also explains the reproductive cycle of mushrooms, and how they help to break down organic matter into soil minerals. This book will not make you an expert on mushrooms, and I would not recommend collecting wild mushrooms for consumption because many deadly ones look very similar to edible ones, but all in all, this is the best book on the subject I have seen so far!

Rating:
Summary: A very helpful book on identifying different fungi
Review: This book not only has clear color pictures of over 400 different kinds of mushrooms and other fungi, it also lists habitats, seasons when the listed mushrooms grow, and edibility. The book also explains the reproductive cycle of mushrooms, and how they help to break down organic matter into soil minerals. This book will not make you an expert on mushrooms, and I would not recommend collecting wild mushrooms for consumption because many deadly ones look very similar to edible ones, but all in all, this is the best book on the subject I have seen so far!