Book 31, Coin Collecting For Dummies, was an interesting book. I was an inveterate stamp collector when I was a teenager, but have never collected coins, so it was new to me, but sort of familiar.
Collecting stamps is a good way to learn the history of a country, and the same applies to coins. This book gives a good overview of collecting coins. There were just two problems with it. Firstly it's an American book so it's mainly about American coins. I've never been to America and never held an American coin in my hand in my entire life so it's probably not where I would want to start collecting. All the dealers, magazines, books and fairs which the book refers to are American and completely useless to me. Secondly, it's very dated. Although it's the second edition from 2008 it's obvious that much of the text is still from 2000 and the some of the parts about the Internet look very out of date indeed. If you ignore that though it's a good book and I give it 6 out of 10, far higher than the rest of the books I have read in the Art section! In fact compared to the last few books I have read Coin Collecting For Dummies is a masterpiece!
As a follow up to Coin Collecting For Dummies I have already bought a coin album and will dip my toe into the world of numismatics. Who knows where it will lead me?
My next book, Book 32, is the from the final bookcase in the Art section.
Masterpieces of the British Museum is pretty self-explanatory. I've been to the museum three times I think and always found it a bit haphazard covering such a large part of the world and so many topics. Hopefully this book will point me in the direction of some of the better works. Even if I were to buy a guide book in museums, which I usually don't, I rarely actually read it! This effectively allows me to read the guide before I go next time, and Masterpieces of the British Museum is a lot thicker than a standard guide book.
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