Witty and eccentric Behind the Scenes at the Museum of Baked Beans traces Hunter Davies' search for the strangest collections in the UK.
There are lots of books about museums -- the art gallery, the town or national museum we all know and love -- but the museum devoted to one specific subject tends to get overlooked, or gets listed in the local guidebook as an oddity. Hunter Davies feels it's time to focus a book entirely on the unusual, the eccentric and the downright potty.
Behind the Scenes at the Museum of Baked Beans is a celebration of the quirky collections -- and the passionate collectors behind them -- that make up some of the strangest and most fascinating museums in the country. From the Keswick Pencil Museum and the Museum of Baked Beans in Port Talbot to the Lawnmower Museum in Southport and the Sheep Centre in Cockermouth, Hunter Davies' tour of the weird and wonderful museums that pepper the country is both an hilarous local history, a celebration of the truly weird and an unrivalled insight into that strangest of human characteristics -- the desire to collect things.
There are lots of books about museums -- the art gallery, the town or national museum we all know and love -- but the museum devoted to one specific subject tends to get overlooked, or gets listed in the local guidebook as an oddity. Hunter Davies feels it's time to focus a book entirely on the unusual, the eccentric and the downright potty.
Behind the Scenes at the Museum of Baked Beans is a celebration of the quirky collections -- and the passionate collectors behind them -- that make up some of the strangest and most fascinating museums in the country. From the Keswick Pencil Museum and the Museum of Baked Beans in Port Talbot to the Lawnmower Museum in Southport and the Sheep Centre in Cockermouth, Hunter Davies' tour of the weird and wonderful museums that pepper the country is both an hilarous local history, a celebration of the truly weird and an unrivalled insight into that strangest of human characteristics -- the desire to collect things.