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

challenging dark informative medium-paced

4.0

This book is a good balance between heavy ethical discussions about death, rare book preservation, and the history of our medical system. Rosenbloom has a gift for talking through difficult subjects by both being aware of morbid curiously (she mentions it as much in the first paragraph!) and keeping the persons harmed at the center. She doesn't provide an easy answer for the ethical dilemmas she outlines, but instead provides context and frameworks to think about it in different ways.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma and Death

This book is about human remains, the medic practice, and includes content about genocide (including the Holocaust).