I got a copy of this for my birthday and, although I haven't tried using it 'in anger', I thought it may be worthwhile putting down my first impressions. My only serious book to compare it with is Roger Philips' Mushrooms.
The book is sized as a field guide and, although relatively heavy due to the high density paper with lots of colour photographs, I'd be happy to carry it in my rucksack.
It covers the majority of the commoner species in the UK, with some coverage of unusual ones.
There is a good introductory section, which includes some nice illustratons of different styles and textures of mushroom parts (caps, stems, gill spacing /type) - better than other glossaries of terms that I have seen.
As for most mushroom books, there isn't a key, as there can be for plants, and you really do need to know something about the characteristics of the different main groups to help with identification. However, as for the Roger Philips book, there is a sort of key at the beginning with a typical example of each of the main groups and a description of the main characteristics of that group.
The primary part of the book is the descriptions of the individial species, comprising text and photographs. The content and technical style of the descriptions is similar to the Roger Philips book, but the photographs are generally a single side view. the Philips book often contains only one photograph, but it often has several examples include sections of the cap.
At the end of the book are two useful sections.
One is a brief tree identification section, good if you are not familiar with trees, and includes colour drawings of leaves and bark.
The other is a section on habitats and common fungus species that are found in that habitat (e.g. Oak Woodlands, Grasslands).
In conclusion, I'm happy with the book so far and do need to test it out in the field, but if you are after a field guide I'd certainly suggest that you have a look at this one, especially given the Amazon price of just over £11.
Geoff
