Top ten books about museums

David Barnett is an author and journalist based in West Yorkshire. After a career working for regional newspapers he embarked upon a freelance career writing features for most of the UK national press. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed Gideon Smith series of Victorian fantasies, published by Tor Books, and teaches journalism part-time at Leeds Trinity University.

Barnett's new novel is The Handover.

At the Guardian he tagged ten favorite books about museums, including:

Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson

An obvious choice, perhaps, but Atkinson’s astonishing 1995 debut is a masterclass in portraying how a museum — in this case, the York Castle Museum — can be a nexus of past lives that exist simultaneously in the present. It tells the story of Ruby Lennox’s life interspersed with the lives of five generations of her female ancestors, presenting them like exhibits in glass cases to be pored over and compared.

Read about another entry on the list.

Behind the Scenes at the Museum is among Anna Quindlen's six favorite books by contemporary female authors, Kate Young's ten fictional feasts for Christmas, Miranda Doyle's ten top books about lies, Jenny Eclair's six best books, and Ester Bloom's top fifteen books everyone should read before having kids.

--Marshal Zeringue