Doug Bierend’s “In Search of Mycotopia: Citizen Science, Fungi Fanatics, and the Untapped Potential of Mushrooms” was completed during the pandemic and takes the reader on a comprehensive, largely present-day tour of fungal enterprises, applications and subcultures, with well-placed backstories. I loved reading about the eventual discovery of halophilic fungi in Utah’s Great Salt Lake and the latest bioremediation research examining how communities of bacteria and fungi can detoxify contaminated soil…
In putting together this book, Bierend shares his journey becoming a mycophile. “In Search of Mycotopia” is thoughtful and optimistic, and I recommend it to fungi fanatics like myself and also to those who are merely curious. ~ Mary Yurlina