A Lovely Ramble Thorugh a Great Institution - A Review of Dry Store Room No. 1

Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life Of The Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I love museums. When I went to Europe after I graduated university, one of the top three things I was looking forward to was getting to visit some of the most famous museums in the world. Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go as well as I hoped they would. Sometimes a museum would be closed on the day I wanted to visit; sometimes schedules for other activities would clash with my own plans and I would have to give way; and on other times I was simply too tired (or sick) to be able to enjoy the visit. In the end, I didn’t get to visit all the museums I wanted to go to, and I still feel a minor pang of regret over that.

One of the museums I had really wanted to go to was the Natural History Museum in London. When the trip was still in its planning stages, I’d allotted one day for the British Museum and the Natural History Museum - sensible, in my opinion, because they were so large. Sadly I didn’t get to visit either, because by that point in the trip I was just too tired to really enjoy the idea of exploring either museum.

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Senatus Populus Que Romanus, With More Emphasis on the Populus - A Review of SPQR

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I first became really interested in ancient Roman history on a slow summer weekend two or three years ago. At the time, I had just finished listening to Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast: specifically the episode titled “Thor’s Angels”, which is about the latter years of the Roman Empire. Driven by curiosity, I downloaded Carlin’s six-part episode series titled “Death Throes of the Republic”, which focused on the collapse of the Roman Republic.

From that point onwards I developed a latent curiosity about the history of ancient Rome, though I didn’t actively pursue it - there were other things I was interested in, after all. But I did start looking at novels that were set in the same period: novels like Lindsey Davis’ Marcus Didius Falco novels, and Ruth Downie’s Medicus Investigation series. Still, the prospect of sinking into those novels didn’t really encourage me to pick them up, because I wanted to learn more about the time period they were set in before doing so.

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