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Telegraph.co.uk

Richard Fortey

Dry Store Room No 1

In his wanderings behind the scenes of the Natural History Museum Richard Fortey came across a room full of objects which don't quite fit anywhere, but which no one could bring themselves to throw away. But that isn't what this book is about. The room reminded Fortey of the sort of memories which come from working in the such a place for several decades. In Dry Store Room No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum he tells us of some of these memories.

We hear about some of the characters who made their mark in museum life, during Fortey's time and before. There's the eradication of the new world screw worm fly from Africa, and the unmasking of the Piltdown forgery. There's the reclassification of truffles and the analysis of meteorites from Mars. And there's all sorts of after hours goings-on (especially in Dry Store Room No. 1). Fortey also tells of his fears regarding the direction in which museums may be going. As the competition for research funding gets tougher, museums find it harder to do the vital work of investigating and classifying species, and there is the tendency for museums to concentrate more on entertaining visitors.

Some people might feel that the chapters are rather too long and rambling, but I thought that it was a fascinating book and is well worth reading, whether you are interested in the natural history aspect or just in a behind the scenes look at a great British institution.

Amazon.com info

Hardcover 352 pages
ISBN: 0307263622
Salesrank: 510622
Weight:1.63 lbs

Published: 2008 Knopf

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Amazon.co.uk info

Hardcover 352 pages
ISBN: 0007209886
Salesrank: 216297
Weight:1.68 lbs

Published: 2008 HarperPress

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Amazon.ca info

Paperback 320 pages
ISBN: 0007209894
Salesrank: 116656
Weight:0.66 lbs

Published: 2008 UK General Books

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Product Description
Richard Fortey—one of the world’s most gifted natural scientists and acclaimed author of Life, Trilobite and Earth—describes this splendid new book as a museum of the mind. But it is, as well, a perfect behind-the-scenes guide to a legendary place. Within its pages, London’s Natural History Museum, a home of treasures—plants from the voyage of Captain Cook, barnacles to which Charles Darwin devoted years of study, hidden accursed jewels—pulses with life and miraculous surprises. In an elegant and illuminating narrative, Fortey acquaints the reader with the extraordinary people, meticulous research and driving passions that helped to create the timeless experiences of wonder that fill the museum. And with the museum’s hallways and collection rooms providing a dazzling framework, Fortey offers an often eye-opening social history of the scientific accomplishments of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Fortey’s scholarship dances with wit. Here is a book that is utterly entertaining from its first page to its last.

Product Description

Richard Fortey—one of the world’s most gifted natural scientists and acclaimed author of Life, Trilobite and Earth—describes this splendid new book as a museum of the mind. But it is, as well, a perfect behind-the-scenes guide to a legendary place. Within its pages, London’s Natural History Museum, a home of treasures—plants from the voyage of Captain Cook, barnacles to which Charles Darwin devoted years of study, hidden accursed jewels—pulses with life and miraculous surprises. In an elegant and illuminating narrative, Fortey acquaints the reader with the extraordinary people, meticulous research and driving passions that helped to create the timeless experiences of wonder that fill the museum. And with the museum’s hallways and collection rooms providing a dazzling framework, Fortey offers an often eye-opening social history of the scientific accomplishments of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Fortey’s scholarship dances with wit. Here is a book that is utterly entertaining from its first page to its last.

An Insider's View of a Great Natural History Museum *****
Up front I have to admit that I am a museum person. I am the curator of a small, but growing, specialized natural history museum in New Mexico, with the main theme being arthropods. I have also had some peripheral associations with larger museums (primarily the American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Florida State Collection of Arthropods, where I am an official associate). I thus to some extent understand the museum culture and it is a pleasant one to me, if a bit quirky at times. One of the great natural history museums is, of course, the Natural History Museum in London. Like all major museums, there are many stories to tell about both the contents of the museum and about their curators. Richard Fortey, who specializes in trilobites and who is a very good story teller, has now captured the museum culture at the institution where he works in a delightful expose titled "Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum." Indeed, Fortey has given the reader a great present in explaining both the foibles of curators and the need for such huge assemblages of stuffed, pickled, pinned, pressed, and boxed objects of natural origin. The people attracted to museum work are often quite interesting (I have found this to be one of the major perks of museum work!) and there are many stories to tell. I think that understanding the very human people engaged in what the average citizen might view as a totally esoteric activity can help to dispel the myths about such scientists. Some of course fit the stereotype (all stereotypes have a kernel of truth, even if tiny), but most modern systematic biologists and geologists are fairly normal as people go. They just are interested in beetles, fossils or ferns as opposed to stamps, sports, history, or novels. Fortey spices his narrative with some real oddballs - Robert Ross, the Keeper of Botany, who was untrustworthy around women (I've known one or two of these characters in my time! They tend to be very difficult to work around), Denys Tucker, who worked with cichlid fish and who often railed against the management and seemed to hate his students, a professional diatomist who collected souvenirs of his sexual exploits, and so on. Still the big story here is how important such museums and their staffs are in meeting human and environmental needs. Martin Hall's work on screwworm flies in Africa is just one case in point. Other researchers have helped with plant pest and disease problems, recorded biodiversity, found promising new chemicals on obscure life forms, and in general have contributed millions of pages of text on the life of this planet. Lest anyone underestimate the importance of this, keep in mind that when we don't know the true identity of a disease organism, a pest or a beneficial organism, we are not easily able to deal with it. All in all I highly recommend this book, especially for people who are unaware of the work that goes on behind the scenes at major museums. The book is easy to read, highly entertaining, accurate, and (I think, at least) will give the reader an appreciation of what such museums do that is important not just to specialists, but to everyone. The Natural History Museum of London has taken a major step that I think will very much help this along, especially for the British public, in that they have opened their research collections for tours. What the public understands they will support, and direct contact makes the work at museums more understandable. Museums are important to civilization and are not just expensive collections of trivia understood only by specialists. I see this daily myself in my interactions with K-12 students, university students, other researchers, and the general public, and I can thus vouch for Fortey's accounts of how collections have aided society. From my view Fortey has preformed a great service for all of us in museum work by making the back rooms, including "Dry Storeroom No. 1," accessible to the general reader.

An Insider's View of a Great Natural History Museum *****

Up front I have to admit that I am a museum person. I am the curator of a small, but growing, specialized natural history museum in New Mexico, with the main theme being arthropods. I have also had some peripheral associations with larger museums (primarily the American Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Florida State Collection of Arthropods, where I am an official associate). I thus to some extent understand the museum culture and it is a pleasant one to me, if a bit quirky at times.

One of the great natural history museums is, of course, the Natural History Museum in London. Like all major museums, there are many stories to tell about both the contents of the museum and about their curators. Richard Fortey, who specializes in trilobites and who is a very good story teller, has now captured the museum culture at the institution where he works in a delightful expose titled "Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum." Indeed, Fortey has given the reader a great present in explaining both the foibles of curators and the need for such huge assemblages of stuffed, pickled, pinned, pressed, and boxed objects of natural origin. The people attracted to museum work are often quite interesting (I have found this to be one of the major perks of museum work!) and there are many stories to tell. I think that understanding the very human people engaged in what the average citizen might view as a totally esoteric activity can help to dispel the myths about such scientists. Some of course fit the stereotype (all stereotypes have a kernel of truth, even if tiny), but most modern systematic biologists and geologists are fairly normal as people go. They just are interested in beetles, fossils or ferns as opposed to stamps, sports, history, or novels. Fortey spices his narrative with some real oddballs - Robert Ross, the Keeper of Botany, who was untrustworthy around women (I've known one or two of these characters in my time! They tend to be very difficult to work around), Denys Tucker, who worked with cichlid fish and who often railed against the management and seemed to hate his students, a professional diatomist who collected souvenirs of his sexual exploits, and so on.

Still the big story here is how important such museums and their staffs are in meeting human and environmental needs. Martin Hall's work on screwworm flies in Africa is just one case in point. Other researchers have helped with plant pest and disease problems, recorded biodiversity, found promising new chemicals on obscure life forms, and in general have contributed millions of pages of text on the life of this planet. Lest anyone underestimate the importance of this, keep in mind that when we don't know the true identity of a disease organism, a pest or a beneficial organism, we are not easily able to deal with it.

All in all I highly recommend this book, especially for people who are unaware of the work that goes on behind the scenes at major museums. The book is easy to read, highly entertaining, accurate, and (I think, at least) will give the reader an appreciation of what such museums do that is important not just to specialists, but to everyone. The Natural History Museum of London has taken a major step that I think will very much help this along, especially for the British public, in that they have opened their research collections for tours. What the public understands they will support, and direct contact makes the work at museums more understandable.

Museums are important to civilization and are not just expensive collections of trivia understood only by specialists. I see this daily myself in my interactions with K-12 students, university students, other researchers, and the general public, and I can thus vouch for Fortey's accounts of how collections have aided society. From my view Fortey has preformed a great service for all of us in museum work by making the back rooms, including "Dry Storeroom No. 1," accessible to the general reader.

An entertaining look behind the curtain *****
Having only been able to make one short visit to this wonderful museum I was extremely happy to get a guided tour in book form, one that takes me through both the current museum and its past as well. Fortey's text has made certain I will block out an entire day when next in London just to visit this museum. Terry

An entertaining look behind the curtain *****

Having only been able to make one short visit to this wonderful museum I was extremely happy to get a guided tour in book form, one that takes me through both the current museum and its past as well. Fortey's text has made certain I will block out an entire day when next in London just to visit this museum.

Terry

Excellent ****
I've had the pleasure of working behind the scenes in a number of natural history museums. While a grad student, I had an office in the Natural History Museum in Dublin, spent a good deal of time every year in the collections of the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, and a month at the Natural History Museum in London. As anyone who has spent time behind the scenes will tell you, not only are all the really cool specimens kept away from public view, but museums are populated with some very strange people! Richard Fortey's latest book offers a wonderfully entertaining and evocative depiction of life in the London museum. He covers the the history of the museum and its collections, the people, and the political skirmishes as administrators wrestled control of the museum away from the scientists and into the hands of businessmen. Fortey's central message is important: the sort of basic (often morphological) systematic and taxonomic work that is being done in museums is important and should not be diminished by administrators' love of "sexy" techniques or charismatic taxa. Our intellectual landscape is being shrunken by the ever-increasing trend to turn museums into sites of performance and tourism rather than of research. Those familiar with museums will recognize many archetypal figures. Members of the public will get a wonderful insight into what goes on behind the scenes. I highly recommend this book.

Excellent ****

I've had the pleasure of working behind the scenes in a number of natural history museums. While a grad student, I had an office in the Natural History Museum in Dublin, spent a good deal of time every year in the collections of the Royal Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, and a month at the Natural History Museum in London. As anyone who has spent time behind the scenes will tell you, not only are all the really cool specimens kept away from public view, but museums are populated with some very strange people! Richard Fortey's latest book offers a wonderfully entertaining and evocative depiction of life in the London museum. He covers the the history of the museum and its collections, the people, and the political skirmishes as administrators wrestled control of the museum away from the scientists and into the hands of businessmen.

Fortey's central message is important: the sort of basic (often morphological) systematic and taxonomic work that is being done in museums is important and should not be diminished by administrators' love of "sexy" techniques or charismatic taxa. Our intellectual landscape is being shrunken by the ever-increasing trend to turn museums into sites of performance and tourism rather than of research.

Those familiar with museums will recognize many archetypal figures. Members of the public will get a wonderful insight into what goes on behind the scenes. I highly recommend this book.

"Did you have a nice week with the troglodytes, dear?" *****
Richard Fortey is also the author of Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution. This has some bearing on this wonderful book because of passages like this: * It might seem an odd ambition to try to get everyone to pronounce a word correctly. But mine has always been to get the world to say "trilobite" without fudging, and with a certain measure of understanding. My own mother was wont to say "troglodyte," which at least has a certain prehistoric dimension, even if it refers to human cave dwellers rather than extinct arthropods several hundred million years older than humans. "Did you have a nice week with the troglodytes, dear?" was one of her regular enquiries. * As this (hopefully) illustrates, Fortey is a capable and humorous guide, one who can impart information without the reader minding it a bit. And this book isn't just about hidden exhibits and research. Some of its most fascinating specimens are the humans who work behind the scenes. One of Fortey's particular strengths is what I call the "Doug Henning Superpower." Older readers may remember Doug Henning as a tie-dyed magician with big hair. Although he should have been aggravating, Henning was able to look as amazed as his audiences at the wonders he wrought onstage. Fortey has this ability as well; he is a guide who takes us behind the scenes of the Natural History Museum with a convincing demeanor of excitement and wonder. And it's contagious!

"Did you have a nice week with the troglodytes, dear?" *****

Richard Fortey is also the author of Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution. This has some bearing on this wonderful book because of passages like this:
***
It might seem an odd ambition to try to get everyone to pronounce a word correctly. But mine has always been to get the world to say "trilobite" without fudging, and with a certain measure of understanding. My own mother was wont to say "troglodyte," which at least has a certain prehistoric dimension, even if it refers to human cave dwellers rather than extinct arthropods several hundred million years older than humans.

"Did you have a nice week with the troglodytes, dear?" was one of her regular enquiries.
***
As this (hopefully) illustrates, Fortey is a capable and humorous guide, one who can impart information without the reader minding it a bit. And this book isn't just about hidden exhibits and research. Some of its most fascinating specimens are the humans who work behind the scenes.

One of Fortey's particular strengths is what I call the "Doug Henning Superpower." Older readers may remember Doug Henning as a tie-dyed magician with big hair. Although he should have been aggravating, Henning was able to look as amazed as his audiences at the wonders he wrought onstage. Fortey has this ability as well; he is a guide who takes us behind the scenes of the Natural History Museum with a convincing demeanor of excitement and wonder.

And it's contagious!

Anything but dry *****
"Dry Storeroom No. 1" is a lively, gossipy memoir of the author's lifetime working at the British Museum. I was intrigued by the resemblance of the characters to some of those I have myself experienced in working at a very different kind of museum. The author has managed to capture the humanity of his fellow-workers while sharing also their contributions to human understanding of the earth.

Anything but dry *****

"Dry Storeroom No. 1" is a lively, gossipy memoir of the author's lifetime working at the British Museum. I was intrigued by the resemblance of the characters to some of those I have myself experienced in working at a very different kind of museum. The author has managed to capture the humanity of his fellow-workers while sharing also their contributions to human understanding of the earth.

An endearing set of tales from behind the scenes at the Museum *****
Although it's described as a social history of the Natural History Museum, what it really is is a collection of amusing anecdotes interrupted by empassioned pleas for the importance of taxonomic research. Fortey is an entertaining writer with a number of strange tales to tell, and he tells them superbly well. Definitely worth the price of admission! I must confess that I've always been a bit dubious about the value of endless jars full of pickled beasts and endless drawers full of dried bugs, but by the end of this book he had won me over.

An endearing set of tales from behind the scenes at the Museum *****

Although it's described as a social history of the Natural History Museum, what it really is is a collection of amusing anecdotes interrupted by empassioned pleas for the importance of taxonomic research.

Fortey is an entertaining writer with a number of strange tales to tell, and he tells them superbly well. Definitely worth the price of admission!

I must confess that I've always been a bit dubious about the value of endless jars full of pickled beasts and endless drawers full of dried bugs, but by the end of this book he had won me over.

Of elbow patches and pipe smoking *****
A must read for any fan of the Natural History Museum and lover of all things pipe-smoking and elbow-patched. Fortey is a man after my own heart, savouring the best of the old and new alike but with little patience for bureaucracy that is sucking the life out of our great research institutions. Fortey writes extraordinarily well and loves a good nerdy joke and anecdote: his character sketches alone make the book worth a read.

Of elbow patches and pipe smoking *****

A must read for any fan of the Natural History Museum and lover of all things pipe-smoking and elbow-patched.
Fortey is a man after my own heart, savouring the best of the old and new alike but with little patience for bureaucracy that is sucking the life out of our great research institutions.
Fortey writes extraordinarily well and loves a good nerdy joke and anecdote: his character sketches alone make the book worth a read.

Interesting but unfocused book from Richard Fortey ***
This latest book by Richard Fortey is largely about the Natural History Museum, the venerable building in London where he has worked since the 1970s. Unlike his earlier books it's rather unfocused - many of the chapters ramble from one subject to the next with absolutely no links, almost as if the author has just jotted down his thoughts randomly, moving from beetles to disease to taxonomy within the space of a few pages. There are also some errors which a good editor should have picked up on, for instance the misuse of the word "an" in "an historical" and "an heroic" throughout the book, and basic errors such as incorrect reference to acronyms (SNC and VMS are NOT acronyms). Where the book works best is in its gossipy asides on the odd characters and that have inhabited the museum over the years and anecdotes regarding their strange behaviour. Fortey certainly makes it sound like an interesting place to work! This is by no means Fortey's best work, but it's diverting enough to be worth a look.

Interesting but unfocused book from Richard Fortey ***

This latest book by Richard Fortey is largely about the Natural History Museum, the venerable building in London where he has worked since the 1970s. Unlike his earlier books it's rather unfocused - many of the chapters ramble from one subject to the next with absolutely no links, almost as if the author has just jotted down his thoughts randomly, moving from beetles to disease to taxonomy within the space of a few pages. There are also some errors which a good editor should have picked up on, for instance the misuse of the word "an" in "an historical" and "an heroic" throughout the book, and basic errors such as incorrect reference to acronyms (SNC and VMS are NOT acronyms). Where the book works best is in its gossipy asides on the odd characters and that have inhabited the museum over the years and anecdotes regarding their strange behaviour. Fortey certainly makes it sound like an interesting place to work!

This is by no means Fortey's best work, but it's diverting enough to be worth a look.

If you like the museum you should like the book ****
This is a personal view of life at the NHM with plenty of interesting science thrown in. It's a good mixture of anecdotes and fact, a difficult balancing act given the size of the museum and the length of its' history. Fortey himself just edges on the irritating at times but his account is well written overall and easy to read. So if 'popular science' is a category you would browse I recommend this book.

If you like the museum you should like the book ****

This is a personal view of life at the NHM with plenty of interesting science thrown in. It's a good mixture of anecdotes and fact, a difficult balancing act given the size of the museum and the length of its' history. Fortey himself just edges on the
irritating at times but his account is well written overall and easy to read. So if 'popular science' is a category you would browse I recommend this book.

A book about one of the World's greatest museums *****
Those who have visited South Kensington in London will not have failed to miss the Natural History Museum on Cromwell Road. This immense, cathedral-like structure is both a very fine museum and a centre of research into taxonomy, palaeobiology, mineralogy and related areas. Much of the museum is not open to the public, and this book introduces the laboratories; specimen preparations rooms; store rooms and much else to the reader. However, it is much more than this. The author parallels the guide book element with the natural history and science of a number of organisms described in the book. Useful information is provided on the origin of the museum, originally part of the British Museum, and how this was entwined with the development of Biology in the 19th Century, including the role of Sir Richard Owen. Also mentioned is the relationship between the government (i.e. funding) and the museum, not always smooth. A particularly fascinating theme running through the book is the wonderfully eccentric nature of British Science and Scientists. We have the many fish men, lichen women, bat men, beetle people and the famous whale man (or whale pit man), Peter Purves. It may have been eccentric, stiff, regimented and under-funded but great Science was produced! In conclusion, a great book essential for fans of the Natural History Museum.

A book about one of the World's greatest museums *****

Those who have visited South Kensington in London will not have failed to miss the Natural History Museum on Cromwell Road. This immense, cathedral-like structure is both a very fine museum and a centre of research into taxonomy, palaeobiology, mineralogy and related areas.

Much of the museum is not open to the public, and this book introduces the laboratories; specimen preparations rooms; store rooms and much else to the reader. However, it is much more than this. The author parallels the guide book element with the natural history and science of a number of organisms described in the book. Useful information is provided on the origin of the museum, originally part of the British Museum, and how this was entwined with the development of Biology in the 19th Century, including the role of Sir Richard Owen. Also mentioned is the relationship between the government (i.e. funding) and the museum, not always smooth.

A particularly fascinating theme running through the book is the wonderfully eccentric nature of British Science and Scientists. We have the many fish men, lichen women, bat men, beetle people and the famous whale man (or whale pit man), Peter Purves. It may have been eccentric, stiff, regimented and under-funded but great Science was produced!

In conclusion, a great book essential for fans of the Natural History Museum.