A supporter of Arts Emergency she has mentored artists and students through a variety of different schemes. Writing with humor, compassion, and wit (I cackled out loud more times than I can count), Hettie leads us sure-footedly on our craggy journey down a glittering path of 60 mineralogical eccentricities, ancient souvenirs of deep-Earth drama, and travelogues that cross the strata of time as well as space. Hettie Judah is chief art critic on the British daily paper The i, a regular contributor to The Guardian’s arts pages, and a columnist for Apollo magazine. This randomness does make it more interesting as amethyst is followed by cairngorm and tuff precedes turquoise.

years ago Babylonians constructed lapidaries – books that tried to pin down the magical secrets of rocks. 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.The essays are shaped with great skill and Judah finds curious and pleasing symmetry and coincidences in the varied stories she tells . Together, they explore how human culture has formed stone, and the roles stone has played in forming human culture. As a broadcaster she can been heard (and sometimes seen) on programmes including BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and Art That Made Us. We are told of incredible creations and decorations, large and small, carved from these prized stones.

There is a picture of each stone at the beginning of each chapter and the page edges are tinted with the colour of the respective stone. The author doesn't have a science background, but surely a consult wouldn't have been out of the question? This book talks a lot about the history of stones, how they came to be, their presence in geological and human history, and culture. We are reminded of the brave men and women charged and challenged with unearthing these prized minerals often with little to no reward.From the hematite used in cave paintings to the moldavite that became a TikTok sensation; from the stolen sandstone of Scone to the unexpected acoustics of Stonehenge; from crystal balls to compasses, rocks and minerals have always been central to our story. Unearth the mystery of the tuff statues of Rapa Nui, the lost amber room of Frederick of Prussia and the scandal of Flint Jack.

Het boek doet wat denken aan het boek van Kassia St Clair over kleuren , maar dan met bevlogen verhalen over gesteenten die toch wat deden nadenken Bv over de invloed van de prijs van de aflaten of over de PlayStation war , die de verhalen niet altijd even licht maken . Amongst these essays exploring how human culture has formed stone and, conversely, the roles stone has played in forming human culture, one will read of the Meat-Shaped Stone of Taiwan, a piece of banded jasper that resembles a tender piece of mouth-watering braised pork belly, There is the soap opera melodrama of Pele’s Hair, golden strands of volcanic glass, spun into hair-fine threads by volcanic gasses and blown across the landscape. It is visually stunning with very high-quality illustrations and an overall fantastic design of the book. Here's the thing: I wanted to be able to come away from each chapter able to say a couple of sentences about each stone, but this book will leave you with a half–remembered sentence on someone who owned the stone in a century you probably won't remember.A fascinating history of stones and the surprising ways they have - and continue to - shape, influence and inspire us, in a beautiful volume. When compared to similar books across other subjects, like Around the World in 80 Trees, I find this sorely lacking. And not to mention the hysterical metaphysical WTFery of angel-appointed wife swaps in the chapter of alchemist and astrologer John Dee’s smoky quartz cairngorm, as well as, the mystical modern-day TikTik moldavite craze vibing amongst those of the witchy-psychic persuasion. Lapidarium weaves the surprising stories of the 60 most fascinating stones into a rich cultural history: from the red ground hematite pigment our cave-painting ancestors used and the mystery behind the tuff Easter Island heads, to the columbite that caused the Playstation War and the intriguing history of the cairngorm crystal ball, to the scandalous story of Flint Jack, whose forgeries still populate many museums in the UK today. 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.

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. Then electricity is brought up again (without the connection back to elektron) and we are taken through a jarring summary of the discovery of amber's properties with a profusion of unexplained quotes.The moment I stopped reading, it literally left my head and I couldn't tell you a single thing that had been mentioned so far. Hettie Judah is an art historian, so this book about minerals and precious stones is not written from a scientific perspective. In Lapidarium , renowned art critic Hettie Judah explores the unexpected stories behind sixty stones that have shaped and inspired human history, from Dorset fossil-hunters to Chinese philosophers, Catherine the Great to Michelangelo.