Haunting Museums

by John Schuster

The spectacularly successful move A Night at the Museum was a fantastic look at the off-hours wonders of the American Museum of Natural History. However, some of the real behind-the-scenes stories are more fantastic than anything a screenwriter could dream up. Haunting Museums covers these overlooked bits of history including curses, mistaken dinosaurs, conspiracy plots of the founding fathers, spectral evidence of the afterlife, and other unsettling matters on full display. Contents The Carnegie Sauropods, Or Bring Me the Head of Apatosaurus Louisae – the story of a dinosaur on display for close to a half a century with the wrong head. What's on that Broad Stripe with Those Bright Stars? – the quizzical mark on the flag that is known as the Star Spangled banner. The 1897 Living Eskimo Exhibit – where living people were put on display and turned over to the taxidermist for "preservation" after they died Man-eaters at the The Lions That Stopped a Railroad – the story of the Maneless lions made legendary by the movie the Ghost in the Darkness So Where is Amelia Earhart? – the exhibit at the Smithsonian Air and Space museum of the most famous missing aviatrix of all time. Along with many other entertaining and fantastic stories.

Genres: Museums, Nonfiction, History

272 pages, Paperback

First published April 27, 2009

Reviews

[Sesana · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is doing itself absolutely no favors with its marketing. The title and cover copy imply that there will be spooky stuff inside, but there really isn't. Instead, it's a fairly random mishmash of stories behind various museum exhibits of varying interest. I imagine that a lot of people who pick this up will feel incredibly disappointed after one or two chapters. I knew going in exactly what it was really going to be about, because I'd read reviews. I was still disappointed. The thing is, I didn't find most of the chapters that terribly interesting on their own. And many of them are fairly well known stories. The one chapter that was actually quite interesting, to me, was the one about shrunken heads, mostly for recounting which institutions have them, whether or not they're being displayed, and why.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Museums can be haunting and abound in eerie exhibits. The author collects sinister topics from museums all over the world (I especially liked the British Museum parts) and presents them in an interesting way. The Carnegie sauropods, bog bodies in the BM, the Elgin Marbles and the curse of Minerva, Lindberg's Swastica, Amelia Earhart and her whereabouts. The second section of the book is about the uncanny: the mysterious Dr John Dee (Lovecraft's Necronomicon), the Voynich Manuscript, Lizzie Borden, a museum dedicated to more than dolls and pins in New Orleans, cursed jewels, the Crystal Skulls, the Mummy on the Titanic, spirit photograph, life and beyond. I enjoyed this tour through the different museums and can recommend this haunting trip.

[Kurt Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this would be a book about haunted museums. It is not. It is about strange exhibits, and indeed some ghosts too. An enjoyable read that, for me at least, did not just regurgitate information.

[Carye Bye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book overall -- I think they chose a poor title, as only maybe a third of the stories are written about the paranormal and ghost sightings, which I'm glad of since I'm not as into that as a good story about something a little weird or curious -- and this book had lots of great stories... Edison's Last Breath, The Bog Bodies, Lindbergh's Swastika. I will probably look for a copy to go on my "MUSEUM LADY" book shelf. Museums are my thing, so there was a lot for me here. I skipped or skimmed over a couple stories that didn't interest me as much or did seem to go on, but overall I thought John was a good and entertaining writer and he seemed to do his research and try for an inside story.

Here's the intro which I thought was great:
Museum. You say the word and what comes to mind. A dusty old compendium of stationary exhibits that pale next to their Disneyfied theme park brethen?.... "A foreboding lair of unknown where something long dead comes to life?"... hmmm. Temple of Muses -- what better word origin for museums."

A few photos or art would have been a nice touch, but a cool book to read and enjoy

[Loren · Rating 1 out of 5]

Like everyone else who reviewed it here, I felt mislead by the title, which implies its about ghosts "Haunting Museums." Instead it's an anthology of often poorly written, repetitive articles about objects in museum collections. I could have forgiven the deviation from the book I thought I was buying if anyone had edited the text, but it's amazing to think this wasn't self-published.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the title, the bulk of the stories in this are about strange items in museums. The second part is about ghosts, supposedly but that part actually lacks the charm that good ghost story retellings can have. The first part is the most interesting and even includes a bit about the Ghost and the Darkness. Enjoyable.


Crossposted at Booklikes.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cataloging it. Looked interesting. I skimmed through this. The title made me think this book was about ghosts in museums. Except for the final chapters, most of the book was about strange objects in museums, not ghosts.

[Gail/Ladyvolz Bowman · Rating 1 out of 5]

title made me think book contained info on haunting in museums and their artifacts. But it doesn't, except for a small piece at the end. Mostly info on pieces in different museums. Boring at times.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book though a bit uneven in its execution. Some friends and fellow authors (Jeff Grubb, Kerrie Hughes, Jean Rabe) did good entries on fascinating exhibits, but many of the articles seemed very padded and hardly to do with the central conceit of the book.

[Charlie Easterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't hate it! I was also confused by the name but once I got over that, it had some generally interesting content. Not every article was a home run but most had some interesting stories behind the exhibits of otherwise everyday museums.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this book up thinking it was going to be spooky tales for Halloween. But it was basically about history which I enjoy also so all was good. It told many different tales from a lot of different places so that was a plus also.

[Noran Miss Pumkin · Rating 4 out of 5]

my Halloween read for this year

[Megan Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could have had so much more to it. It was very simply written, often confusing at times. Great topics though. It had so much potential.

[Kathryn Rogers · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried REALLY hard to like this book, but it droned on and I eventually lost interest.
Did not finish.