Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones

Product Information

This book is a fascinating glimpse into the world of precious stones and what they have meant to people over the years.

She regularly talks about art and with artists for museum and gallery events, and has been a visiting lecturer for Goldsmiths University, London and Dauphine University, Paris.I wanted to love it – I think there should be loads of books encouraging us to reconnect with the natural world, to come away with some general knowledge about our planet and our surroundings and how it's shaped human civilisation at large. While the diversity of the stones and the geology are fascinating, what I particularly enjoyed was learning about the ways in which humans have used these stones, from the Malachite Room in Russia’s Winter Palace to the giant stone Medusa heads in the underground cisterns in Istanbul to the ‘meat stone’ that draws crowds in Taipei.

I would have appreciated photographs of some of the wonders described - it would have been handier than having to use Google. This randomness does make it more interesting as amethyst is followed by cairngorm and tuff precedes turquoise.We are reminded of the brave men and women charged and challenged with unearthing these prized minerals often with little to no reward. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

Through the realms of art, myth, geology, philosophy and power, the story of humanity can be told through the minerals and materials that have allowed us to evolve and create. It’s a stunningly presented and designed book, with color-coordinated pictures and beautiful illustrations by artist Nicky Pasterfield for each stone, evoking the charming pictures in old geological and scientific publications. It was easy to read, and had plenty of interesting stories pertaining to the rocks that the author chose, but the chapters were very short (one was only two pages) and provided only a brief overview of the rocks in question. When compared to similar books across other subjects, like Around the World in 80 Trees, I find this sorely lacking. A collection of extravagant stories about artists, miners, princes, chancers, criminals - and above all collectors .I truly lost myself reading this book and discovering how important stones are to us all even in our modern age. Hettie tells us short stories about each stone: from the paleolithic to the Playstation War, and from Elisabeth I to Imelda Marcos.