Naturalist forager and educator Maria Pinto offers a stunning debut book that uncovers
strange and beautiful fungal connections between the natural and human worlds. She mingles
reportage research memoir and nature writing touching on topics that range from Black
farmers’ domestication of the unforgettable aroma of truffles to the history of mycological
poisons wielded by enslaved people against their enslavers. Pinto brings a new perspective and
a distinctive literary voice to this mix of environmental and lived history and every page
sings with her enthusiasm for the networks in which we are embedded: fungal ecological
ancestral and communal. Join her in pursuit of beautiful perplexing delicious and deadly
mushrooms as she explores this understudied kingdom’s awe-inspiring diversity and discovers how
fungi have been used by people especially those on the margins for survival pleasure
revelation and revolution.
