Substance: Vignettes of Met employees, derived from personal interviews. Wide range of positions, from janitor to director. All very short, but contain some flavor of the enterprise. ( )

This is a wonderful book. I love the Metropolitan Art Museum and found it fascinating to go behind the scenes. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has visited the Met! ( )

This was an intriguing take on learning about a museum - examining not its collections, but its people. And some of the most interesting stories came from the non-curators. The perspective of the head of fire safety, the florist, the docent - all fascinating. Though of course the fixation of each curator on their area of specialty was interesting as well. Very enjoyable - should make my next visit even better.

I thought this was really inspiring. Danziger paints a portrait of the museum by interviewing every person who works there from the cleaning staff on up to the director. Each short chapter is one employee's story: their background, how they came to the museum, what they like about it and what they dislike. Danziger comments that often when he writes these kinds of books he uncovers lots of unhappiness and politics going on under the surface, but in this case almost everyone he talked to was adamant that the Met is a wonderful place to work. It definitely made me want to go see the place. Each of the curators talks about what he or she loves best in his or her own collection, including the things that tourists usually miss. I want to go see all those things now.