I don’t remember when I started listening to Lore, the folklore and dark history podcast from Aaron Mahnke, just that I’ve been listening to it for years. Mahnke has a specific way of telling stories, of unwinding a story interesting in its own right only to reveal at the end a surprising detail or the true identity of the person at its center. It’s one of the few podcasts I download automatically when a new episode drops. So, I was delighted when I saw a new addition to the world of Lore—Cabinet of Curiosities: A Historical Tour of the Unbelievable, the Unsettling, and the Bizarre.
The stories gathered within Cabinet of Curiosities are a smattering of old favorites and new stories ranging from bizarre natural occurrences to unknown origin stories to crazy coincidences. Among my favorite stories are the truly bizarre story behind Professor Marvel’s ratty old coat in The Wizard of Oz; the man struck by lightning three (or four) separate times; the devastating beer flood of 1814; a handyman being visited by Roman ghosts; the philosopher who hasn’t missed a meeting in nearly three hundred years; the amateur who knocked out a legendary boxer; and perhaps the most, uh, unique medicine bag to ever be made.
Despite its length, Cabinet of Curiosities is a fairly quick read because its potpourri of stories each clock in at just a few pages. I often either take or have to wait for the train on my commute, and these were fun and easy little stories to read while waiting without having to commit to a whole chapter or potentially skim over a major plot development. (Less delicately—and pardon the minor confession here—they were also great little bathroom reading bits. Yes, I sanitize my phone often.) For me, the same quality that made this such a great book to dabble in whenever I had a few moments to spare also meant it wasn’t my go-to when I had a larger chunk of time to dedicate to reading. I don’t think either thing is good or bad so much as an assessment of where this volume shines.
Lore has a distinct style, and that same writing is present on every page of Cabinet of Curiosities, so much so that, without reading the audiobook, I still had Mahnke’s voice and delivery in my head, along with a light soundtrack from an imaginary Chad Lawson. Another option if you, as Mahnke is fond of saying at the end of each episode, want more Lore in your life. That said, Cabinet of Curiosities doesn’t rely on a familiarity of Lore, or Mahnke, or Lawson. I can imagine picking this up in a bookstore, maybe with a passing knowledge of the podcast, or maybe being ignorant to it entirely, and being interested merely on the basis of its resemblance of a more narrative-minded Ripley’s Believe It Or Not or a similar compendium of fun and quirky stories I devoured as a kid. It’s fun, it’s sometimes dark, sometimes weird, but always interesting.
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