Paperbacks: Dry Store Room No. 1, by Richard Fortey

There cannot be many other books about learned institutions that contain an illustration with the irresistible caption, "Don't contemplate it for too long." The injunction applies to an "accursed amethyst" that is "stained with the blood and dishonour of everyone who has ever owned it".

The words are those of Edward Heron-Allen (1861-1943), one of the great benefactors of the Natural History Museum. In keeping with his will, the amethyst was locked in seven boxes for 33 years before being donated to the museum. Even now it retains its sting. Fortey notes that after handling it, "my back seized up most painfully on the following day". His account glitters with oddities, both inanimate and human. Among the latter, we learn of the whale dissector Peter Purves (1915-1995), who "had the deliberate delivery of the perpetually sozzled" but was "much less adept when sober". He once suffered severe burns falling into a stripping tank. Fortey reveals that the museum has employed an unlikely number of Lotharios, charlatans, and eccentrics. The last category includes the author, who admits that in 1976, he "almost burnt down the Smithsonian Institution". Fortey compares the museum to Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, "labyrinthine and almost endless". This entrancing ramble is wholly in keeping with this weird, wonderful place.