The Antiques Magpie by Marc Allum

The Antiques Magpie is the kind of non-fiction book that I enjoy. It's about one topic (antiques), which is broad enough to go into different directions of information - which makes for a really fun reading experience.

Author Marc Allum (from Antiques Roadshow), covers many different topics, from the 1933 penny, to stolen Art to even how to take care of the priceless furniture you own (the term 'shabby chic' was used). It's probably an introduction to the world of antiques (no prior knowledge is assumed), and for an introductory book, it's really interesting. The style is conversational, though informative, and I think that even if you only a passing interest in antiques, you'll find yourself being absorbed by this book.

The only thing that might annoy you is that the book isn't very well-organised. The chapter titles are interesting (E.g. 'Mythical Objects', Ulfberhts, Chanel handbags, patents and copyright', 'Animal, vegetable or mineral?' etc), but if you're looking to refer back to a particular chapter, it might be rather difficult. But, if you're just dipping into this book for pieces of knowledge that might come in useful, I doubt that this will be much of a problem.

While most of the book is written in a conversational style, occasionally, this is broken by lists. I suppose that this is for the collector, but I wasn't very interested in it. However, they don't take up that much space, and you can happily skip the pages without any sense of guilt.

All in all, this is a very interesting book that will, I think, appeal to both the antique collector wannabe and the random reader in search of more random pieces of information.

Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.