A review by proseweb
Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation Into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin by Megan Rosenbloom

informative fast-paced

2.5

Kind of hated this tbh!! It was written from kind of a breathless 'isn't it SO COOL that I have a JOB about BOOKS?' place that I found very off-putting. It also didn't seem to engage with any of the larger literature around human remains in favor of slightly-better-than-pop-history. I ended up skimming the last half looking for all the yes/nos on which specimens of alleged human skin binding did in fact end up real, because I knew the author was not going to engage with the ethics around the practice with the rigor or nuance I wanted from her.
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