Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones

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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. 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. Not yet ready to leave this post-book mental space now lit crystalline and glittering with the fruits of the earth thanks to Hettie’s heady prose, I thought I might ask the author and art historian a few questions–which she kindly answered for me in this blog post https://unquietthings. Hettie tells us short stories about each stone: from the paleolithic to the Playstation War, and from Elisabeth I to Imelda Marcos.

Might be a good reference for those seeking this type of information, and I discovered it was not me. 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. This book is a fascinating glimpse into the world of precious stones and what they have meant to people over the years.

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When compared to similar books across other subjects, like Around the World in 80 Trees, I find this sorely lacking. 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.Our advancement as a species came about by forging stone tools even now the Industrial Revolution was possible because of coal. Upcoming books include How Not To Exclude Artist Mothers (and other parents) (Lund Humphries, September 2022) and Lapidarium (John Murray, London, October 2022/ Penguin, NY, March 2023).

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. From the Taiwanese national treasure known as the Meat-Shaped Stone to Malta’s prehistoric “fat lady” temples carved in globigerina limestone to the amethyst crystals still believed to have healing powers, Lapidarium is a jewel box of sixty far-flung stones and the stories that accompany them.

Yet, there's hardly any science at all, and what little there is – well, it's not very well explained. 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 .

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. I would have appreciated photographs of some of the wonders described - it would have been handier than having to use Google. The essays are written from a British point of view, which took a little getting used to (especially some of the pronunciations in audio book), but it was very well done. Hettie Judah breaks her book down by types of stones into these categories;Stones and Powers, Sacred Stones, Stones and Stories, Stone Technology, Shapes in Stones and Living Stones.It is visually stunning with very high-quality illustrations and an overall fantastic design of the book.