Larry Millman, author and mycologist, is returning to the Woods Hole Public Library for two mushroom-related events in August. First, he will lead a talk and walk seeking mushrooms and other fungi on Wednesday, August 9, at 3 PM. Larry is very knowledgeable and informative about the local fungi and loves teaching others about them. This event will start with a short talk outside in the Library’s courtyard, then participants will proceed to the walk site in their own cars. The talk will take less than fifteen minutes, and the walk will last an hour and a half. To take part in the walk, please register by emailing (whpl_mail@clamsnet.org) or calling (508-548-8961).
The following afternoon, on Thursday August 10 at 3 PM, Larry will return to the Woods Hole Public Library for a talk as well as a reading from his latest book Foraging with Jeeves & Other Offbeat Mycological Excursions. This book defies any known genre, just as fungi often tend to defy our attempts to identify them. Think science (the Salem witchcraft fungus) followed by satire (a fungal Faust) followed by an account of what sort of fungi one might find in Antarctica. An element of humor pervades the book’s pages, as indicated by a remark one of its characters, the butler Jeeves, makes to his master: “Wit and mycology go together, sir.” Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the talk.
Mycologist-author-Arctic explorer Lawrence Millman has written 19 books, including such titles as Last Places, A Kayak Full of Ghosts, Our Like Will Not Be There Again, Lost in the Arctic, At the End of the World, Fascinating Fungi of New England, Fungipedia, and The Last Speaker of Bear. In addition to having a fungus named after him (Inonotus millmanii), he and fellow mycologist Bill Neill discovered a species, Echinodontium ballouii, that had been presumed extinct since 1909. He had done mycological work all over the world as well as in his own backyard of Cambridge, Massachusetts.