Throughout history, precious stones have inspired passions and poetry, quests and curses, sacred writings and unsacred actions. In this scintillating book, journalist Victoria Finlay embarks on her own globe-circling search for the real stories behind some of the gems we prize most. Blending adventure travel, geology, exciting new research, and her own irresistible charm, Finlay has fashioned a treasure hunt for some of the most valuable, glamorous, and mysterious substances on earth.
With the same intense curiosity and narrative flair she displayed in her widely-praised book Color, Finlay journeys from the underground opal churches of outback Australia to the once pearl-rich rivers of Scotland; from the peridot mines on an Apache reservation in Arizona to the remote ruby mines in the mountains of northern Burma. She risks confronting scorpions to crawl through Cleopatra’s long-deserted emerald mines, tries her hand at gem cutting in the dusty Sri Lankan city where Marco Polo bartered for sapphires, and investigates a rumor that fifty years ago most of the world’s amber was mined by prisoners in a Soviet gulag.
Jewels is a unique and often exhilarating voyage through history, across cultures, deep into the earth’s mantle, and up to the glittering heights of fame, power, and wealth. From the fabled curse of the Hope Diamond, to the disturbing truths about how pearls are cultured, to the peasants who were once executed for carrying amber to the centuries-old quest by magicians and scientists to make a perfect diamond, Jewels tells dazzling stories with a wonderment and brilliance truly worthy of its subjects.
From the Hardcover edition.
具體描述
讀後感
Amber Succinite: amber Succinum is the Latin term for a substance that is ultimately derived from sap (succus is Latin for sap or juice). The Greeks called amber elektron, meaning "the sun," because it comes in all the colors of the sun, bright yellow and s...
評分Amber Succinite: amber Succinum is the Latin term for a substance that is ultimately derived from sap (succus is Latin for sap or juice). The Greeks called amber elektron, meaning "the sun," because it comes in all the colors of the sun, bright yellow and s...
評分Amber Succinite: amber Succinum is the Latin term for a substance that is ultimately derived from sap (succus is Latin for sap or juice). The Greeks called amber elektron, meaning "the sun," because it comes in all the colors of the sun, bright yellow and s...
評分Amber Succinite: amber Succinum is the Latin term for a substance that is ultimately derived from sap (succus is Latin for sap or juice). The Greeks called amber elektron, meaning "the sun," because it comes in all the colors of the sun, bright yellow and s...
評分Amber Succinite: amber Succinum is the Latin term for a substance that is ultimately derived from sap (succus is Latin for sap or juice). The Greeks called amber elektron, meaning "the sun," because it comes in all the colors of the sun, bright yellow and s...
用戶評價
相關圖書
本站所有內容均為互聯網搜索引擎提供的公開搜索信息，本站不存儲任何數據與內容，任何內容與數據均與本站無關，如有需要請聯繫相關搜索引擎包括但不限於百度，google,bing,sogou 等
© 2025 book.quotespace.org All Rights Reserved. 小美書屋 版权所有