Ewwww!

SUPER GROSS. But also fascinating: tests have revealed that Harvard's Houghton Library copy of Arsène Houssaye’s Des destinées de l’ame is without a doubt bound in human skin. It isn't quite as Silence of the Lambs-y as it sounds, though—apparently, the bodies of executed criminals and mental-health patients were donated to science, and their skins were given to tanners and bookbinders.