Local author and artist, Hilary E. Bartlett, will be signing copies of her new book “Mushroom Mania” at Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shop in Boothbay Harbor on Saturday, July 20 from 1 to 3 p. m. This is Hilary’s second volume of non-fiction published by North Country Press.

­­­­­­­­­Mushrooms are fruit bodies of fungi that support plant, forest and human health as well as Maine’s economy. Consumption of fresh mushrooms has boomed in recent years — sales of medicinal mushroom supplements have soared. Enthusiasts are also scouring the woods to forage more mushrooms.

She started working on “Mushroom Mania” during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the perfect project for the lockdown because it tapped into all of her passions — mushrooms, biology, art, and cooking. Her book is full of health benefits, recipes, watercolors of Maine’s wild species, plus tips on how to grow mushrooms at home.

Hilary was born and raised in postwar Liverpool, England, a predominantly Irish city where markets stocked a dozen varieties of potatoes, rarely mushrooms. She studied these fungal fruit bodies as part of her microbiology training and earned her doctorate from University College London.

A summer science fellowship brought Hilary to Boothbay Harbor in 1975. Hilary’s passion for mushrooms flourished when she first moved to rural Maine. She stumbled upon a dapple-lit wonderland, Oven’s Mouth in Boothbay, where mushrooms poked through moss and leaf litter along steep banks of a tidal waterway. 

Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shop in Boothbay Harbor is at 5 Commercial Street.