Having read this book from cover to cover I have enjoyed much of it, and learnt a great deal from it, although some of the chapters are too condensed to be intelligible to the general reader.

The opening chapter criticizes the decline in the training of, and resources for professional mycologists, and highlights the incredible diversity of the Kingdom Fungi and its importamce to the rest of the biosphere. The rest of the book clearly demonstrates this diversity and the wide-ranging interactions between humans and fungi through fungal biotechnology. The programme of the 2010 International Mycological Congress will also highlight this diversity.

The book is generally well-constructed, although it is a pity that the two chapters discussing the mycotoxin ochratoxin were not placed consecutively. Ochratoxin is especially important in agriculture in the context of the contamination of cereals, but is also important in the spoilage of grapes and wine; however, these two chapters are separated by several unrelated topics. There are very few mistakes but it is annoying to find the captions of two especially complex figures (8.3 and 8.4) referring to colour when the figures are in black and white! The reference to LBA 4404 in the text on page 245 is presumably the same as that to LB4404 in Table 13.2, and references to Table 10.2 on pages 296 and 298 must refer to Table 16.2.

The book would be very useful to those developing courses in biotechnology, food and environmental microbiology and should certainly be available in university libraries. Each chapter has a very extensive bibliography and those working in a wide range of industrial and research laboratories could also find it useful.