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.