Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones

I found myself locked out of the house with nothing to amuse myself with, no phone to play with, and a three hour wait for the next person with keys to show up. So I did what any sane person would do, went into my local bookshop and bought a book I knew nothing about and couldn’t afford because the cover felt really nice.
As well as feeling good, it’s a beautifully presented book, with colours running through it, from the markers on the side to the muted colours in the depths near the spine. Aside from all of that I’m delighted I was locked out because it’s an incredibly interesting book and one I was genuinely sad to finish a couple of days later. These are stories about rocks, it’s not a geological textbook, but I learned a show more hell of a lot on the way, mostly I learned how little I know about geology and how cool rocks are.
It’s going on my ‘highly recommended’ bookshelf. That’s how much I enjoyed it. show less

This is the type of book that seems easy to write—Hettie Judah writes 60 brief essays about different kinds of stone, from precious gems to building materials, loosely arranged by theme—but is very difficult to do well. Judah doesn't pretend to be writing a true scientific work here, and I'm sure that a geologist would find this a very glancing overview here, but she is instead writing at the intersection of geology, history, art history, and philosophy. She has a great eye for the kind of story that's going to most appeal to the general reader, and provides a fascinating set of introductions to various objects and places: from Mongolian Deer Stones to Maltese Mother Goddesses to the Meat-Shaped Stone of Taiwan. The book itself is show more also a beautiful thing, with full-colour photos and that gorgeous cover. A lovely book to dip into. show less

I’m contemplating tagging this as “stories” along with everything else as that’s what this book is really comprised of. Each stone mentioned contains a micro history which could be a biography, a mythological tale, science particulars, or something else fascinating (or all of those together). You do need to read it with google on hand to discover what the stone’s actual definition may be, but I enjoyed this interesting read very much (also was completely drawn in by its gorgeous cover—well done book designer).

Absolutely adored this book. Keep the web nearby so you can look up the stones in question. It’s just a bit of the science of geology, mixed with history and folklore to really create an anthology of interesting tales