NewSouth Publishing is excited to announce a new book by Alison Pouliot, Underground Lovers: Encounters with Fungi, will be published in March 2023.
Told through first-hand stories – from the Australian desert to Iceland’s glaciers to America’s Cascade Mountains – Alison shares encounters with glowing ghost fungi and the enigma of the lobster mushroom. She presents new questions and insights about fungi, as well as an intimate celebration of their astonishing beauty and complexity. Melding science and personal reflection, we look at the fungi that appear after fire, how fungi and climate change interact, the role of fungi in ecosystem restoration, and more.
Fungi have long been neglected, the overlooked poor cousins of flora and fauna. I’m thrilled that NewSouth recognises that we are in something of a fungal turn and how these exhilarating new poster organisms can reconfigure our understanding of the natural world.
Underground Lovers shows us how fungi hold forests together, and why humans are deeply entwined with these unruly renegades of the subterrain.
Alison’s inquisitive, wide-ranging, playful writing on fungi has made me rethink the way I see the world around me. Fungi inhabit every corner of our planet, and this book shows us their role as the world’s recyclers, their critical importance in the fight against climate change, the connections between women and fungal lore over generations – and these fascinating insights from Alison are accompanied by many hitchhiking adventures along the way.
Alison Pouliot is an ecologist and environmental photographer with a particular interest in fungi. Her fungus workshops and courses, which she conducts across both hemispheres, attract a range of people from foragers and philosophers to rangers and traditional owners. Her previous book The Allure of Fungi poses fundamental questions about human-fungus liaisons and she is the co-author, with Tom May, of Wild Mushrooming: A guide for foragers. Alison is currently an honorary fellow at ANU.
