Mushrooms are growing in publishing, fashion, Hollywood

“I saw it on our mushroom table and took it,” says Mr. Goldin for the book, which Kirkus Reviews calls a “perspective-changing guide to our microfungal matrix.”

Customers and staff enjoy the mushrooms so much that his store has a freestanding display dedicated to all things mushrooms. Titles range from Frank Hyman’s How to Find Mushrooms Without Dying to Victoria Romanoff’s Foraging and Feasting on Mushrooms: Memoirs and Recipes from a Lifetime on the Hunt.

The lowly mushroom is becoming a star in publishing, fashion, Hollywood and Instagram.

Designer Stella McCartney’s website features what it describes as the “world’s first luxury bag” made from mycelium, a leather alternative made from thread-like mushroom roots. “Our Summer 2022 collection chooses to optimistically celebrate mushrooms – as the future not only of fashion, but of our planet,” the site explains.

Ms McCartney says some of her “fondest memories” are from her childhood on an organic farm in Scotland. “The freedom we experienced there in harmony with Mother Nature has had such an impact on how I approach the design of all my collections from conception to the materials I work with,” she adds.

Vogue magazine last year wrote about the influence mushrooms had on established glamor in the story “You’re Not Stumbling: Mushrooms Are Taking Over Fashion.” In mid-July, Vogue followed up with a story about mushroom leather hats. “Slowly but surely,” the piece reported, “leather alternatives made from mycelium instead of animal skin have entered the market.”

Sarah Spellings, Vogue’s fashion news editor who wrote the hat story, says she recently bought a mushroom-embellished Hermès silk scarf after seeing it mentioned or worn by people on Instagram. In the fashion world, mushrooms represent a source of creative inspiration and embrace of nature, she says: “They have a deeper meaning if you dig into it, no pun intended.”

Mushrooms featured in the comic television series Ted Lasso when Coach Beard, a man of few words, is seen reading Tangled Life: How Mushrooms Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake. Mr Sheldrake, a biologist and author who has more than 50,000 followers on Instagram, later proudly tweeted from the show.

“The book has permeated the culture,” says Hilary Redmon, who edited “Entangled Life” for Random House, an imprint of Bertelsmann SE’s Penguin Random House. “Merlin wanted you to think like a mushroom, and he succeeded.”

Literary admirers of the title include Margaret Atwood, who tweeted her assessment offering words of hope for future generations. “Despair about the future of life on earth? It doesn’t matter, there will be mushrooms among us. One way or another.”

Ms Atwood says she has always been interested in mushrooms. She wrote an essay about mushrooms in high school, she says, and has written several poems about them, including “September Mushrooms,” which appears in “Dearly,” her latest book of poems (2020). She also writes about mushrooms in her “MaddAddam” trilogy of novels. “They seem so unlikely,” she says.

Sales of Entangled Life have shown steady growth. Nineteen months after the hardcover was published in May 2020, the paperback edition appeared on the New York Times non-profit list on December 12, 2021. “That never happens,” says Ms. Redmon.

Readers bought about 220,000 mushroom-related print books in the nature, life sciences and mind, body and soul categories this year through Aug. 13, according to book tracker NPD BookScan, down about 9% from a high point in 2021. , but an increase of 56% compared to 2019.

Helping to drive interest have been the recent How to Change Your Mind documentary series hosted by author Michael Pollan and based on his 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, death, addiction, depression, and Transcendence,” and the Louie Schwartzberg-directed documentary “Fantastic Fungi,” says Kristen McLean, an NPD book analyst.

“Mushrooms are certainly having a moment,” she says.

Mushroom enthusiasts like Jane Mason, a 55-year-old children’s book writer, have long known the fun of mushrooms that others are now discovering. She spent a recent Sunday in late July foraging for morels in a forest near Eagle, Colo.

She estimates she’s taken home 120 pounds this year, stuffing the big ones with beet greens, onions and cheese and pan-frying them on both sides. A forest fire last summer — combined with a “very wet summer” this year — has led to a bumper crop, she says.

Ms. She later lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she foraged for chanterelles, candy canes, black trumpets, and cauliflower mushrooms.

Alan D’Souza, a 52-year-old librarian at the City College of San Francisco, says he has stored enough foraged mushrooms in his home to survive Armageddon. The best first question should probably not be, ‘Can I eat that?’ He says, “but it helps us engage with the natural world.”

Understanding the difference between a safe mushroom like mushroom and a poisonous species is essential. “I would encourage anyone not to be afraid of mushroom hunting, but don’t ingest anything until you’re 100% sure what it is,” says Kristen Blizzard, who with husband Trent Blizzard wrote Wild Mushrooms: A Cookbook and Foraging Guide.”

In a politically charged period, mushroom hunting provides a much-needed relief. “One thing about the mushroom community is that everyone gets along,” says Ms. Blizzard. “It’s kind of like a pickle in that regard.”

Write in Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com