The Secret Lives of Stones

Lapidarium sifts through the quarry spoil of history and uncovers gems . Judah''s pages are filled with eccentrics and inventors, with the obsessive pursuit of beauty, the hopeful constructions of belief and the thirst for progress and improvement. Her stories also bear out the tragic pattern of so much engagement with the natural world - what begins in wonder leads to greed andrapacious extraction. Behind the glitter of jewellers'' windows lies the shadowy back-rooms of polluted water sources, conflict diamonds and the mercury poisoning of artisanal goldworkers.>

Préface
A fascinating history of stones and the surprising ways they have - and continue to - shape, influence and inspire us, in a beautiful volume.

Auteur

Hettie Judah