Treasures or clutter? The problem of knowing what to keep

Every so often the past makes a pass at you. An old school report, a train ticket, a curl from a first haircut falls out of an envelope and sends you tumbling back through the decades. For most of us these things are flotsam and jetsam, of momentary interest, but for Rachel Morris they are vital. It is partly that she works in museums, so is deeply invested in the past, and partly that her family history is so mysterious, fragmentary and ‘soaked in sadness’ that she relies on ‘things’ to help her piece together where she came from, and who she is.

This book has two strands. First, it’s an exploration of Morris’s passion for museums — how they came into being, why some have flourished and others struggled to survive; secondly it’s the tale of her emptying boxes that have sat under her bed for years unopened, and sorting their contents to create a private ‘Museum of Me’.