All That the Rain Promises and More: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms

This is a super cool book. Super easy to follow. Easy to find what you need. The pictures are very helpful. It is also the perfect size, slides perfectly in the side pocket of my backpack.

best book reference INHO out there.

This book is the penultimate for foraging wild shrooms. I spent years researching and everything and every skilled person in my region, told me to get a copy of this, specific book. That is legit all i want to say because if you get this book and don't eat random shrooms without asking for a second opinions IRL, you'll be fine and learn tons.

As many reviewers before me have stated, this is a great field guide--it's got a good key, great pictures, and is accessible to pretty much anyone with a grasp of the English language. The author's capricious sense of humor makes it a pleasurable read (that's not him on the cover), and his passion for the subject is infectious. I live in the desert, and within a day of getting it delivered I was scrabbling through the nearest empty lot, trying to find any sign of Desert Shaggy Manes and Torqs pushing through the topsoil (even though it hadn't rained in over a month). Just this weekend we were up hiking in the nearby mountains, and came across two gigantic mushrooms (well, a polypore and a conk, to be more precise). I was able to identify both of them within a minute of looking into the book (verifying the ids when I got home). Because the author chose to cover the mushrooms one most commonly encounters, this book offers the greatest chance of being useful out in the field. Besides that, there's a lot of practical advice that is quite helpful. I highly recommend this book!

This year I suddenly realized how freakin' cool mushrooms are! (Or I'm just getting old.) For the past few months, in addition to scouring EVERYWHERE within a 3 mile radius of my West Seattle home, I've spent countless hours (days) searching Google for identification help, which I'm sure you know causes more harm than good at times. I ordered this along with the Audobon Field Guide and they both arrived yesterday. Within minutes of opening this book, I identified 3 of the mushrooms sitting on my kitchen counter that I'd just spent half the day trying to figure out online! Pictures are great because they're color-accurate and show the angles I need, it's organized in a way that's meaningful to me as a beginner, and the descriptions gave me long-overdue insight into concepts I've struggled with such as taxonomy, toxicity effects, and how to tell the difference between an edible delight vs. a gut-wrenching nightmare. He even includes ridiculously simple recipes. Most importantly, as a mushroom noob, his non-condescending, light-hearted humor, and intuitive writing style gave me the confidence to feel like I can actually do this.

Decent book but it doesn't tell you if there are poisonous lookalikes or not. It does have cooking recommendations for each type though, along with specific tips on recognizing when the mushrooms are rotten or already past their peak harvest season. It's an interesting read either way. You'll just need to get other books to accompany it for a full idea on mushroom foraging safety tips and advice. I ended up having to buy two more books to have enough information to feel satisfied that we had all the best information for our foraging trip.

Fun and informative. A good addition to a naturalists library. All mushrooms are edible, some only once.

Lovely pocket guide, this is the 3rd copy I got for friend and family. I always have one that I carry with me on hikes and camping trips (along with other field guides on plants).

This book is filled with pictures and information. It even includes a page dedicated for smut! Imagine that? Great book for my collection. Definitely a book I would take on a foraging trip.

Un libro que no sólo es una muy buena guía de campo, también es divertido. Lo disfruté mucho.

Short, witty and entertaining. A handy guide written by mushroom enthusiasts for outdoorsy people. It covers some of the most common mushrooms of the northern hemisphere (also applicable in Europe) and contains many recipes and anecdotes. Will definitely brighten you up, may you need it or not.

Simply the best and funniest mushroom handbook there is. But for something a bit weightier, try Paul Stamets ...Mycelium Running. Wish these guys didn't all live in the North-West of the US. Is there a British equivalent that is as amusing (and useful) I wonder?

A must have mushroom book. Great for beginners, shows a wide variety of species, as well as how to identify. Well formatted so it's not chunky blocks of text, photos to go along with as well as anecdotes, ways to cook, and tips. Size is perfect to fit in a bag, not too small that the text is hard to read and not too heavy.