A fascinating read. I'd love to go and spend days or weeks there. Well written, but would have liked more pictures. ( )

(#11 in the 2008 book challenge)

Now this was satisfying from nearly beginning to end. It's a look at New York City's natural history museum, split into two parts. The first is a more straightforward history of the institution, both how it came about as well as how the philosophy of managing an enormous natural history collection developed over the years. The second half is a look at some of the specific pieces in the collection, selected to illustrate various aspects of the mission of the museum. And, let me stress, it had A LOT of Ripley's Believe It Or Not type trivia facts. Isn't that what really sparks the interest of a six year old kid in a museum in the first place? And did you know there are broken plaster casts of dinosaurs buried in Central Park? Coincidentally, this book was written in the mid 80s, which was about the time I first became very familiar with the AMNH, and shortly before the explosion of brightly colored and loud interactive displays at museums. I know I'm a curmudgeon, but I cannot express how much I hate that trend in museums. Oftentimes, the display is broken to begin with, and even if it's not, I'm put off by how manky all the buttons and screens are after having been touched by countless grabby people, many of whom would seem to have recently eaten greasy food. In addition to being generally informative, I loved this book because it created such a vivid picture of the natural history museums I remember. Museums where you were supposed to be quiet and contemplative and smell like floor polish. If you need me, I'll be yelling at kids to get off my lawn.

Grade: A+
Recommended: To armchair naturalists, fans of natural history museums, and people who enjoy reminiscing about New York City cultural touchstones.

If you are familiar with the American Museum of Natural History, this book will provide fascinating back stories of many of the star exhibits in the museum collection. The first chapters about the early struggles of the museum lost my interest, but revisiting the place revived my enthusiasm to start reading again. By telling the stories of how different objects in the collection were acquired, the author does a good job of explaining how the scientific mission of the museum has changed through its history, how the understanding of natural history has evolved in the last 150 years, as well as giving us some campfire stories of explorers and their difficult journeys.
The leitmotif running through all of these exotic adventure tales is the boundless drive of men & women of science to discover the undiscovered, to capture it and bring it in chains to the domestic confines of New York City, where casual tourists can gaze hurriedly at row upon row of these spiritless prizes.