A review by fireblend
The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing

5.0

I loved this book. One the one hand, it's an academic book in that it has a thesis that it introduces at the beginning alongside a framework and series of terms to understand it; alienation, assemblages, translation, contamination. At the same time it's a book that, like the mushroom it mostly talks about, resists academicity and easy classification because said thesis holds itself up with stories about mushroom picking, the multiple paradoxes of forest management, the (also paradoxical) edges of capitalism and the enthusiasm of a researcher finding a niche they genuinely love. Also, mushrooms are cool as hell and I want to try matsutake now.