‘Brilliantly delicate, pointed, shivery… You could read it as a guide to which galleries to avoid – or to where the push for repatriation should be most urgent.’ – Erin L. Thompson, professor of art crime at the City University of New York

‘Achieves a near-impossible marriage between paranormal pop-culture, folklore and hauntology’ – Roger Clarke, author of A Natural History of Ghosts

‘A heady cocktail of history and folklore that leaves a haunting aftertaste… Spine-tingling’ – Lindsey Fitzharris, New York Times bestselling author of The Facemaker

‘A reader might well do as Angell did himself: come for the delicious ghost stories but stay for a complete takedown of the British Museum project.’ The New Statesman

What if the British Museum isn’t a carefully ordered cross section of history but is in instead a palatial trophy cabinet of colonial loot – swarming with volatile and errant spirits?

When artist and writer Noah Angell first heard murmurs of ghostly sightings at the British Museum he had to find out more. What started as a trickle soon became a deluge as staff old and new – from overnight security to respected curators – brought him testimonies of their supernatural encounters.

It became clear that the source of the disturbances was related to the Museum’s contents – unquiet objects, holy plunder, and restless human remains protesting their enforced stay within the colonial collection’s cabinets and deep underground vaults. According to those who have worked there, the institution is heaving with profound spectral disorder.

Ghosts of the British Museum fuses storytelling, folklore and history, digs deep into our imperial past and unmasks the world’s oldest national museum as a site of ongoing conflict, where restless objects are held against their will.

It now appears that the objects are fighting back.

Zoologist Jack Ashby spends his life working in Britain’s natural history museums, and in Nature’s Memory he guides us through a series of extraordinary collections, from marvellous mounted whale skeletons and impossibly tiny insect cabinets to buried treasures in vast museum storehouses.

But look more closely at these displays: all is not as it seems. While most exhibits succeed in communicating feelings of wonder and awe – a vital function when less people than ever before have access to the outdoors – Ashby argues that the version of nature natural history museums present does not always reflect reality, with specimens revealing more about the biases of curators than they do about the species they represent. Likewise, the ways in which museums have traditionally told the story of their own histories has disproportionately elevated the contributions of certain kinds of people whilst diminishing the work of others, often ignoring their complex colonial heritage altogether. But Ashby contends that these issues are precisely why it’s such an exciting time to be a natural historian, for while society shapes museums, so too can museums shape society – for the good. And as we face the existential threat of cataclysmic biodiversity loss, natural history museums will emerge as indispensable resources in the fight against climate catastrophe.

Weaving together fresh historical research, entertaining zoological trivia and insider stories from Ashby’s distinguished natural history career, Nature’s Memory is a charming ode to the joys, eccentricities and planet-saving potential of the world’s best-loved museums.

• The Lost Gardens of Heligan, England  
• Las Pozas, Mexico  
• Le Jardin Majorelle, Morocco  
• The Garden of Dreams, Nepal  
• Villa d’Este, Italy  
• Paleis Het Loo, Netherlands  
• Crowninshield Garden, USA  

 
Discover the remarkable stories behind the  creation, decline and occasional rebirth of these astonishing spaces, and meet the people and societies that first created and enjoyed them.
 
The perfect gift for garden lovers, armchair travellers and cultural enthusiasts.
 

Journalist Rachel Spence has watched visual arts become a flashpoint for today’s social divisions. She interviews artists, activists, directors and donors, revealing elitism and injustice. Business and finance launder their reputations through  patronage, while governments exert authority by weaponising or attacking the arts-and gallery-goers and workers mobilise to demand better. How did we get here, and what awaits these institutions?

From China and Russia to Helsinki and Brooklyn, from the British Museum to the Louvre and Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi,  Battle for the Museum  uncovers a dark nexus of capital, art and power-and radical resistance movements fighting fiercely for exhibition spaces that serve today’s public.

‘Brilliantly delicate, pointed, shivery… You could read it as a guide to which galleries to avoid – or to where the push for repatriation should be most urgent.’ – Erin L. Thompson, professor of art crime at the City University of New York

‘Achieves a near-impossible marriage between paranormal pop-culture, folklore and hauntology’ – Roger Clarke, author of A Natural History of Ghosts

‘A heady cocktail of history and folklore that leaves a haunting aftertaste… Spine-tingling’ – Lindsey Fitzharris, New York Times bestselling author of The Facemaker

What if the British Museum isn’t a carefully ordered cross section of history but is in instead a palatial trophy cabinet of colonial loot – swarming with volatile and errant spirits?

When artist and writer Noah Angell first heard murmurs of ghostly sightings at the British Museum he had to find out more. What started as a trickle soon became a deluge as staff old and new – from overnight security to respected curators – brought him testimonies of their supernatural encounters.

It became clear that the source of the disturbances was related to the Museum’s contents – unquiet objects, holy plunder, and restless human remains protesting their enforced stay within the colonial collection’s cabinets and deep underground vaults. According to those who have worked there, the institution is heaving with profound spectral disorder.

Ghosts of the British Museum fuses storytelling, folklore and history, digs deep into our imperial past and unmasks the world’s oldest national museum as a site of ongoing conflict, where restless objects are held against their will.

It now appears that the objects are fighting back.

A revelatory portrait of a great museum and the moving story of one guard’s quest to find solace and meaning in art

‘Who would have thought that the outstanding art book of you would have been written not by a curator or an art historian or even an artist – but by a museum guard?’ Sunday Times

When Patrick’s older brother dies at twenty-six, all he wants is to retreat. So, he does. He quits his job and seeks refuge in the most beautiful place he can think of: New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

All the Beauty in the World recounts Patrick’s time as a museum guard, keeping quiet vigil over some of our greatest treasures and uncovering the Met’s innermost secrets. As his connection to the art and the life that swirls around it grows, so does Patrick – and gradually he emerges transformed by heartbreak, community and the power of art to illuminate life in all its pain, pleasure and hope.

‘As luminous as the old masters paintings’ Daily Mail
‘Consoling and beautiful’ Guardian
‘Marvellous’ Daily Telegraph
‘A beautiful tale about beauty. It is also a tale about grief, balancing solitude and comradeship, and finding joy in both the exalted and the mundane’ Washington Post

*New York Times bestseller, Nov 24

For most of human history, we were rural folk.

Our daily lives were bound up with working the land, living within the rhythm of the seasons. We poured our energies into growing food, tending to animals and watching the weather. Family, friends and neighbours were often one and the same. Life revolved around the village and its key spaces and places – the church, the green, the school and the marketplace.

And yet rural life is oddly invisible our historical records. The daily routine of the peasant, the farmer or the craftsperson could never compete with the glamour of city life, war and royal drama. Lives went unrecorded, stories untold.

There is, though, one way in which we can learn about our rural past. The things we have left behind provide a connection that no document can match; physical artefacts are touchstones that breathe life into its history. From farming tools to children’s toys, domestic objects and strange curios, the everyday items of the past reveal fascinating insights into an often-forgotten way of life. Birth, death, celebration, work, crime, play, medicine, beliefs, diet and our relationship with nature can all be read from these remnants of our past.

From ancient artefacts to modern-day memorabilia, this startling book weaves a rich tapestry from the fragments of our rural past.