Description

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 globecircling 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 widelypraised book Color Finlay journeys from the underground opal churches of outback Australia to the once pearlrich 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 Cleopatras longdeserted 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 worlds amber was mined by prisoners in a Soviet gulag

Jewels is a unique and often exhilarating voyage through history across cultures deep into the earths 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 centuriesold quest by magicians and scientists to make a perfect diamond Jewels tells dazzling stories with a wonderment and brilliance truly worthy of its subjects