DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines

Our Lifelong Relationship with Fungi

Nicholas P Money author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Princeton University Press

Published:19th Mar '24

Should be back in stock very soon

Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines cover

The hidden role of fungi inside and all around us

From beneficial yeasts that aid digestion to toxic molds that cause disease, we are constantly navigating a world filled with fungi. Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines explores the amazing ways fungi interact with our bodies, showing how our health and well-being depend on an immense ecosystem of yeasts and molds inside and all around us.

Nicholas Money takes readers on a guided tour of a marvelous unseen realm, describing how our immune systems are engaged in continuous conversation with the teeming mycobiome inside the body, and how we can fall prey to serious and even life-threatening infections when this peaceful coexistence is disturbed. He also sheds light on our complicated relationship with fungi outside the body, from wild mushrooms and cultivated molds that have been staples of the human diet for millennia to the controversial experimentation with magic mushrooms in the treatment of depression.

Drawing on the latest advances in mycology, Molds, Mushrooms, and Medicines reveals what scientists are learning about the importance of fungi to our lives, from their vital role in supporting the ecosystems on which we depend to their emerging uses in lifesaving medicine.

"[This book is] so well written. Money's wry wit is so engaging and humorous that even if the subject . . . isn't something normally on your radar, I am confident that you will very much enjoy this book."---Britt A. Bunyard, Fungi Magazine
"Engaging and informative. . . . An amusingly written opus on fungi."---Debbie Viess, Mycophile
"Well researched, informative, and yet incredibly accessible and at times quite humorous, Money's book reminds readers of the importance of relying on evidence when making claims about curative and restorative treatments found in published scholarship."---Z. G. Ngow, Choice
"This book is everything any decent person would want to know about fungus, and by the time Money gets into full swing, even the most reluctant reader will want to know more."---Steve Donoghue, Open Letters Review
"What a fine book! . . . Nicholas Money writes with a fluid, easy style and like so many scientists today displays a superb ability to inject snippets of wry humour into serious discussion."---David Gascoigne, Travels with Birds
"A fine introduction to a formidable form of life."---Tony Miksanek, Booklist
"A very informative read."---David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer
"All of the content is presented in a factual, clear and concise manner. It also contains a few hints of humor."---Neil Dollinger, Inoculum

ISBN: 9780691236308

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

240 pages