A review by crowyhead
Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey

3.0

This is part memoir, part history of the British Natural History Museum, part paean to the glories of science, and part gossipy tell-all. The parts don't always mesh quite as well as I would like, but I still greatly enjoyed this book. I've really enjoyed a Fortey's works of natural history, and I think this book is at its best when he is gleefully geeking out about how taxonomy or exclaiming over a strange find in a cabinet in a dusty corner of the Museum. Less enjoyable are his stories of the politics and personal foibles that his colleagues were involved in. I liked hearing about the colorful characters who worked for the museum in years past, but I started to get a bit uncomfortable when Fortey would start talking about the infidelities of people he'd worked with. It's all very joshing and very British, but it felt a bit awkward and I wished he'd maybe left some things of that nature out. Other than that, though, this is a really enjoyable book.