Book Review: Skulls by Simon Winchester

 

A non-fiction book about skulls, let's dive right in.

In Skulls, Simon Winchester walks us through the animal skull collection of Alan Dudley, a British collector with arguably the most complete private collection in the world. We're shown many photos of each skull with information about the species, sometimes with additional commentary from Dudley himself. Winchester also writes a great deal about skulls themselves in separate chapters, where we delve into matters such as the significance of skulls in history, art and culture. 

I really liked this book. I mean, I used to be a collector of skulls myself and still do have a small collection to this day, so it probably was up my alley. I always found animal skulls to be rather fascinating and getting to look at so many different ones is definitely a treat, especially with the great photography. I also greatly enjoyed Dudley's personal commentary on the skulls, such as how he got them or where it shows signs of damage. 

My favorite parts of the book, however, weren't the chapters showcasing the skulls, but rather the ones where the author goes in-depth on skulls, whether it be in history, art, culture, science, etc. These chapters were very enjoyable to read and definitely taught me a thing or two. It's also neat to see how skulls carry different meanings in different parts of the world. The photos were pretty, don't get me wrong, but I really loved these chapters that actually teach us more than just the animal it's from and go in-depth on the subject.

If I do have one criticism, it's that I spotted at least one mislabeled skull in this. A skull that was said to be that of a hare was clearly that of a rodent instead, though I can't exactly place which. Despite them often being confused, lagomorphs and rodents do have pretty different skulls, so this mislabeling came off as pretty unprofessional as even an amateur collector like me could spot it. Probably just a small mistake where they forgot to insert the wrong photo, but it still comes across as slightly sloppy.

Overall this was a thoroughly enjoyable book, though, particularly the chapters where we go in-depth on the subject. I do recommend this book, but only if you can handle the subject of animal death, obviously.

Rating: 4/5