Their anatomy is poetry. The soft gills? Lamellae. Below the earth, thread-like hyphae compose the vast mycelium. Mushroom horror is keenly aware of the oddball beauty of mushrooms. It loves them despite (or maybe because of) their quiet relationship with death and rot.
Mushroom Horror Book Recs
In sporror (spore horror), Mexican Gothic has become a staple. After receiving an incoherent letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for help, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, the couple’s mansion in the Mexican countryside. I read this one ages ago, when I was in a deep reading slump. I’m still grateful to Moreno-Garcia for pulling me out. She’s a master of atmosphere! I’ll never forget pulling up to that stunning haunted house for the first time. (Read my Goodreads review of Mexican Gothic.)
What Moves the Dead is an insta-follow-up for me: if you loved Mexican Gothic, give What Moves the Dead a chance. A retired soldier, on receiving word that a childhood friend is dying, races to the young woman’s crumbling mansion in the remote countryside. It’s got a similar atmosphere, a slow-burn mushroom-horror mystery surrounding a once-grand estate. And where Moreno-Garcia is a master of atmosphere, Kingfisher is a master of voice. Her characters always sing.
Sorrowland and Ghost Eaters are both gloriously and unapologetically weird, perfect if you want something that feels fresh and startling and unexpected.
Sorrowland has strong, honed prose paired with a plot that never feels chaotic despite being totally unpredictable. Seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised, Vern flees into the woods to raise her twins. (Read my Goodreads review of Sorrowland here.)
Ghost Eaters, in comparison, is less grand and more visceral, almost a little messy (in a good way). When Erin’s ex-boyfriend convinces her to bail him out of rehab, only to die by overdosing on a mysterious new drug called Ghost, Erin agrees to a pill-popping “séance.”
Going forward, I’m wildly excited for Spread Me. I absolutely loved Sarah Gailey’s Just Like Home, so I can’t wait to see what she can do with mushroom horror. I’m similarly excited about The Annual Migration of Clouds, because Premee Mohamed’s These Lifeless Things was just so unique and haunting.
In putting this list together, I also stumbled into two new authors for me! The Blighted Stars has a romance, and I’m always here for sci-romance with uncanny or strange space settings. And The Hood, apparently the second book in the Anti-Matter of Britain Quartet, is like an unhinged twist on Robin Hood starring Sherwood forest, which is . . . not right.
Historical Mushroom Descriptions
Fungi Collected in Shropshire and Other Neighborhoods: A Victorian Woman’s Illustrated Field Notes by M. F. Lewis
For over forty years, from 1860 to 1902, Lewis walked England and Wales, recording fungi biodiversity.
Media
“Mucorales” is a short indie mushroom horror game that puts a fungal spin on Red Riding Hood. The art is clearly a labor of love! Look at the texture details in the wallpaper, the forest floor.
Photography
Jenna Soderling (@jennasoderling) is a visual artist and song writer who also happens to take bomb-ass photos of her hiking adventures. Sometimes there are mushrooms. Find her on Spotify too! Her music is a real treat, and she crochets like a wizard.
Art
Elizabeth from The Mourning Star makes a lot of desperately adorable stuff. Among her work is this “mycologist” collection of little enamel pins! Pass a lazy half hour just cruising her online shop.
Rosemary Mosco (@rosemarymosco) makes nature comics and books that are the perfect mix of charming and informative. (Okay, sometimes with more emphasis on the charming, but whatever.) Find her artwork on Instagram or at her amazing website.
Madison Davis is a multimedia artist who makes, among other things, truly charming mushroom art that I desperately want for my desk. Check out all the options at The Arcane Moth.
“Mother Mushroom with her Children” by Polish artist Edward Okun (~1900), compared with “A Scary Story” by Anna Mond (@annamond), a contemporary artist with an emphasis on the strange and fantastical. While the first one is all whimsy among the papery birch, the second leans into the “horror” side of mushroom horror.
Enjoy the mushroom horror?
Check out my other themed lists: SNOW and CAVES both offer more book recs and oddities. Mushroom horror isn’t all I’ve got! You can also subscribe to the Author-Oddity Newsletter to get lists straight in your inbox every month.
