This is a very interesting collection of little known or lesser known historical facts and tales about famous people or historical figures. It's a look at the curious side of history that has either not been well told previously or that has been forgotten over time. The author does a really great job presenting the short bits of history in an interesting way that often leaves you guessing the identity of person involved until the end when it's revealed. It reminded me a lot of the movie Mike Rowe put out called Something To Stand For. I love curious, little-known facts and now I know even more of them.

Cabinet of Curiosities: A Historical Tour of the Unbelievable, the Unsettling, and the Bizarre by Aaron Mahnke is a captivating exploration of intriguing and unusual artifacts. Mahnke expertly weaves together a tapestry of historical oddities that will leave readers both informed and entertained. With his signature storytelling style, Mahnke delves into the depths of our past, compelling us to reconsider our understanding of history.

Cabinet of Curiosities: A Historical Tour of the Unbelievable, the Unsettling, and the Bizarre by Aaron Mahnke, is the very highly recommended collection of stories from his podcast which are edited by Harry Marks.

Self described as tales of wonderful, astounding, and downright bizarre people, places, and things throughout history, these short nonfiction selections are perfect for those who like history and trivia in a quick, short, often humorous format. While familiar with many of the events/tales presented, I am unfamiliar with the podcast but immediately appreciated this collection as one that can entertain and educate.

This is one of those collections that you can pick up, read a few stories, set aside and pick it back up whenever the mood hits you. They are organized by topic, so a reader could chose to read tales from just one topic or browse through several. All the stories are truly strange and interesting pieces of history. Many of the selections are suitable for ages 10 and up. The stories are also intentionally short, so don't expect a scholarly deep dive into any one event, although you could undertake this on your own if interested.

After I read Cabinet of Curiosities, I immediately knew this is an excellent gift choice for several people. Of them, one is a trivia lover and this would become a coffee table/bathroom reader to pick up as the mood strikes. Another loves history and would likely use the stories as an impetus to looking further into a topic. Thanks to St. Martin's Press for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.

The review will be published on Edelweiss, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

Neutral 3 stars
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I’m a huge fan of Aaron Mahnke and his podcasts, so I was particularly excited for this one. But it just felt sort of meh.

The little snippets in the book are definitely interesting, but I found them a little too short and the research was questionable. It felt like a lot of assumptions are made. The research being so heavily Wiki based was a little off-putting. Some of the stories were definitely more interesting than others, but overall I felt pretty bored by this. I put it down for a while to read other things because I felt so slumped. I think it was just too many stories and not enough info on them. I tend to dislike anthologies and they’re like because of the lack of ability to set the scene fully and that’s definitely what I felt about this one. There was quite a bit of wanting be witty and it took away from the overall book.

This is certainly a fun conversation starter, but felt a little shallow in its research.

I am a years long listener of The Cabinet of Curiosities podcast and other Grim and Mild productions. I particularly enjoy this podcast for bite sized oddities and peculiarities from history. A small point of interest in a normal day.

I don’t think that this book was written for the podcast listener. Many if not, all of the stories have already been featured on the show. For me personally, it made it repetitive. Although a new reader will likely be engaged and I admit that this is a Me specific problem.

More generally, when reaching the bibliography, I was dismayed by the number of Wikipedia attributions. Even if you start researching a topic that way, look for the primary or expert sources from there. Is this a book of interesting stories? Yes. Is it a heavily researched historical resource? No.

Depending on what you’re looking for I think you’re mileage will vary with this book. It is not poorly written and the stories themselves are often interesting, but they are also only loosely thematically tied vignettes. It may flow better if, even indirectly, the stories were somehow tied together rather than entirely standalone.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

I loved all these stories! The length of them is great, it's just long enough to give a good amount of information while being short enough to quickly digest. I bet this would be even better in physical form!

A fun read that might be. most appreciated in hard copy instead of ebook because that format will allow the reader to dip in and out and around the collection. Each story is only three or four pages long making them a nice bit of education that might lead you, like me, to look for more information. It's quite eclectic. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Would make a good gift, especially for a YA reader.

What a fun book! Hard to believe some of these curiosities actually happened, but fascinating. I would recommend this book to sit in your nightstand and read a few of the stories every night, as I found reading large chunks at once could be a little tiresome. The only thing I wished was included in this book that wasn’t, were photos! I think that would have raised my rating a whole star.

Thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for a free advanced e-copy of this book.

3.5 ⭐️

Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities is a collection of short stories and tales. You will learn about people, places, and things. I downloaded this book to my phone, so I could easily read a story while waiting in a line rather than scroll social media. It's so great! I learned so much. I can't wait to check out the podcast as well.

This was a super fun fast read. The stories were thoroughly entertaining and I found myself giggling and having a really good time reading them Whether all of these stories are indeed completely factual I don't know but I kinda looked at it in a urban legend, meets ancestor pass down of stories. I had a great time reading this and would absolutely recommend for anyone that is into these kinds of quirky stories.

Unbelievable, unsettling, bizarre, and fun!
Cabinet of Curiosities is my favorite kind of read. It was highly entertaining and gave me lots of smiles and “wow”s, and at the same time I learned a lot of fascinating information, so I can even say it is good for my brain! It is a book-length collection of items from Aaron Mahnke’s podcast. Each is about 3 or 4 pages long and presents an intriguing tidbit that you would NOT know; I do not think I encountered any item I had heard before. The topics include subjects like American History, Coincidences, Creatures, Literature, Inventions, Origin Stories, True Crime, and War. Each item ends in a clever remark or quip that usually made me smile or chuckle (although a few were sufficiently disturbing that the end remark was sober.). The cleverness of the final words of each item impressed me as much as the author’s research skills. Much as I would like to share some prime examples, I will refrain so that you can enjoy them as much as I did.
There was not a dull piece in the bunch, but every reader has their own special interests. As a lifelong avid reader , the background stories of a number of authors I thought I knew well were perhaps my favorites, since they were as fascinating as the authors’ products themselves. One of my other favorites told the almost unbelievable tale of the origin of some of our most popular breakfast cereals.
Despite the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed Cabinet of Curiosities, I do not see it as a book to sit down to read for several hours at a time. Instead, it is perfect to pick up if you have a short stretch of time to read. I highly recommend it if you are tired out and need something to help you unwind. It MIGHT not be a good read in the company of a family member who is trying to do something else, though, because it provoked me to laugh so often and to share some of the best stories. I think it would make a great listen; the audio version is narrated by the author.
I have recently seen a number of book compilations on various subjects that claim to be the best from a popular podcast. Usually I find myself a bit disappointed at the lack of consistently good quality. This was NOT my experience with Cabinet of Curiosities, and it is a contender for my Favorite Book of the Year.
I received an Advance Review Copy of this book from NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press.

I had been in a reading slump for a while and this booked help get my jump started again. As a fan of the "Lore" podcast, the short stories were set up in a similar fashion and even though I had heard some of these tales before, I still stayed engrossed and found myself hearing the podcast music in my head while reading.

I’m not sure what I expected from this book, I think this one was perhaps just not for me.Sorry

Thanks Netgalley and Publisher. all thoughts an opinions are my own

Bite sized stories that leave you wanting the next one. This is a great book to open when you are waiting in line or just need to fill give minutes. The vignettes are 3-6 pages long and easy to read
I enjoyed all of them. Most are historical facts that most have never heard. Much like Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story.

I have never listened to the podcast, but this was a fun read. I love stories about quirky and bizarre things, so this was an entertaining read!

I’m not sure what I expected from this book, but it was definitely not what was delivered. I think this one was perhaps just not for me. It overall felt like something that *might* work in an oral/conversational format, but just did not translate well on the page.

There were definitely some interesting facts mixed in, but overall the information seemed fairly mundane— definitely not bizarre, unsettling, and unbelievable (as promised by the title). I can see that this book would be fun as a coffee table book or short bedtime stories for kids (perhaps I am not the target audience). But even in those contexts, I felt the stories omitted detail in favor of cutesy prose. Some of the stories were also incredibly uninteresting to read and a slog to get through, largely due to the author choosing to wait to reveal the “surprise” (or whatever thing makes it interesting) until the end. The pig convicted of murder comes to mind as a particularly egregious example of both these things— the most interesting parts of the story were left out and we received no factual details.

As a source of information, and for the aforementioned reasons, I didn’t really trust the “facts” and I also wasn’t given enough information to go and verify the stories or obtain more detail on my own. I also felt concerned that Wikipedia was cited as a primary source for almost every story— no shade to wiki, but it is a starting point to guide further research.

This is the perfect novel for a waiting room, coffee table, dare I say guest bathroom? It is filled with odd, even bizarre stories from a coin flip that decided the fate of three people to wars won and lost all during a celestial event.

I had a good time with these tales and read a few each night before bedtime. It would make an excellent gift for someone who likes history and facts.

Cabinet of Curiosities, A Historical Tour of the Unbelievable, the Unsettling, and the Bizarre, by Aaron Mahnke was received directly from the publisher and I chose to review it. I had never heard of this author or any of his works before, but the topic sounded interesting to me. As soon as I started reading it, it made me think of the of the old school Ripley's Believe It or Not "comics" from newspapers back in the day. The book is very interesting and each story is about the right length to keep the reader from getting bored. Actually, if I had children in the house, this book would be great to read a bedtime story each night, as they would learn new and wonderful and exciting things. If you, or someone you buy gifts for, want sot learn about new topics, certainly give this book a read.

5 Stars

Cabinet of Curiosities is a collection of 160 short stories, categorized into 14 different topics. Topics range from American History, Coincidences, Events, Inventions and many more. My favorites were Coincidences, Eerie Mysteries, and True Crime. The book is like the Ripley’s Believe It or Not of curious tales.

As a fan of trivia and astonishing stories, Cabinet of Curiosities was a delight to read. I can’t imagine the amount of research and work that went into collecting all of the data, compiling them into short stories, and then categorizing those stories into a book.

The writing style is easy going, fun, as well as informative. It read like a friend sharing tales around the campfire. Entertaining and full of fun facts, Cabinet of Curiosities is the perfect book for non fiction trivia fans. Five stars.

I was invited to read a DRC from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley. This review is completely my own and reflects my honest thoughts and opinions.

None of the curiosities were long enough to really establish an interesting story and wikipedia was cited as the main source in a lot of the stories. This would have simply worked better in Mahnke's main format, podcast.