Sunday book review – A Brush with Fungi by David Mitchell – Mark Avery
This is a big book full of beauty. It has over 400 A4 pages of paintings of over 250 UK fungi. And every one of those pages holds the eye because of the amazing complexity of the fungi and the artist’s skill. From Scarlet Waxcap to Warlock’s Butter, and from Giant Puffball to Lemon Disco, every page holds the eye.
There is a lot of well-displayed information in these page too, considering that the watercolours are given space to be seen to maximum advantage. We learn much about the individual fungi: season, spore colour, habitat and status. The artist doesn’t solely depict one example of each species but often takes us through the season and explains and shows how the species changes shape and colour. The economy of words but feast of information is impressive.
The annotations to the paintings are full of the author’s observations of the species in the field and it comes as no surprise to find that this celebration of fungi has been three decades in the making. It’s a gorgeous book.
The cover? I don’t think the cover works very well in enticing me into a book full of beauty. The jokiness of the title doesn’t set the right tone and that wood doesn’t much appeal to me from what I can see of it. The cover isn’t a doorway into the wonderful artwork that lies behind it and for that reason I’d give the cover 4/10 and recommend you quickly get into the pages which will delight you.
A Brush with Fungi by David Mitchell is published by the author and available from Summerfield Books.
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