Back cover reads:

When you put on jewels, what are we really wearing? Victoria Finlay travels across the world to tell the true stories of these miraculous oddities of nature. Her search takes her to the AUstralian opal fields with their underground towns, through a ruby market in Burma under the eye of the military junta, and to the Native American reserve that holds the world's biggest supply of a forgotten gem. Throughout she asks: in an era when we can manufacture synthetics, why do jewels still hold their appeal?

Offering up as a bookring. Participants are:

- lauraloo29 (Canada)
- MaryZee (USA)
- OpheliaPhillips (UK, post within Europe)
- LyzzyBee (UK)
- AnglersRest(UK)
- Jubby (home in Australia)

RELEASE NOTES:

Posted off to lauraloo29.

This arrived safe and sound today. I have a few other rings as well. I will keep the ring moving. :)

I have been enjoying this book. The problem is I wanted to read it slower and with my rings beginning to pile up I can't do that. :( Not to worry. I will certainly not look at jewels the same way again. This was an intreiging book.

I will be sending it on its way next week. Thank you for sharing!

This arrived safely in the mail today. I'm working on another bookring right now, but will update on here when I start this one. Probably a week or so.

2/14 update - How appropriate! I'm starting to read about jewels on Valentine's Day.

I am loving this book! The author introduces us to the Mohs' scale (for gemstone hardness), and takes us through a gamut of gems by traveling to their origins, and sharing their history with us. I've traveled to Poland/Russia to learn about amber, England to learn what jet is, and Japan to study pearls. I've also immersed myself in the worlds of opals, peridots, and emeralds. All that's left to me are sapphires, rubies, and diamonds.

This book is a marvelous, very readable combination of travel, history, and science. But an alert to any Americans reading this review - the American title is Jewels: A Secret History. Another example of same book, different title!

Many thanks to Jubby for sharing this wonderful book. I was looking for non-fiction books on Amazon a while back, and I remember noticing Finlay's previous book Colour: Travels Through the Paint Box. That one's now been added to my wish list.

I have OpheliaPhillips' address, and will be sending this out to her later this week.

I've finished this book, and will be mailing it out to OpheliaPhillips tomorrow.

I was interested to note how some of the books mentioned in her (extensive) bibliography mesh with my reading. Earlier this year, I read Bill Bryson's magnificent book, A Short History of Nearly Everything. On p. 335, the author mentions Bryson's book in explaining how kymberlite pipes deliver diamonds to the earth's surface. I also have Marian Fowler's book (which the author mentions several times) Hope: Adventures of a Diamond on Mt. TBR.

This is my 9th book for the 2007 Keep Them Moving Challenge.

Wow, this is a hefty tome - thank you very much Maryzee for getting this in the post to me =) I've got a month and a bit in which to get this read before I go travelling, which shouldn't be a problem at all as I am fascinated by geology, gemstones/rocks and such things. Looking forward to this read.

Thank you Jubby for sharing this! I've really enjoyed reading this - so much in fact that I am considering getting a copy for myself. I'm also really keen to read her other book, Travels Through the Paintbox.

It's like history/social anthropology/travel/geology all mixed up into one. It is a fascinating book, I really enjoyed it. Something I could come back to. There's just so much in it that it's hard to know where to begin to say what I liked.

I think the final chapter, on diamonds, was a particular eye-opener, and I don't think I will ever look at them in quite the same way again. They do have this reputation of being the 'top-gem' and yet there are so many of them out there and they have little second-hand value??? The possibility of a diamond being a conflict diamond is also very off putting.

The chapter on jet was also very interesting for me, because I come from North Yorkshire, so Whitby is relatively local to me. I already knew quite a bit about the jet industry, but it was still very interesting. Oh, and that Dracula's grave she mentions seeing some teenagers looking for - it does actually exist, although no doubt Dracula isn't burried there ;). I think I heard somewhere it's a pirate's grave, although that may very well be folklore too. Either way, there's no writing on it, just a carved skull and crossbones. If you follow the track up the side of the church, towards the back where you leave the graveyard and head up to the abbey, then it's somewhere to the left, quite close to the path.

Will get this in the post tomorrow for the next reader.

Received today - thank you! I have already read the Colours one (and highly recommend it) so I'm really looking forward to this. I'm at home with a bad throat and just about to finish my current At Home read, so I should get on to this one pretty quickly. And I already have Anglersrest's address. What a surprise to find her on the same list as me - not!!

I'm afraid that I couldn't really get on with this one and I'm going to give up. I'm not sure what it is, I have read her other one fine. It just seems a little perfunctory, like she's ticking off the boxes - here's the history, here's where I go and look at x, here's where I go and look at y - and I found myself having to force myself to read a few pages a night. So I'm going to admit defeat and will send it on to Anglersrest at the weekend.

Sorry - and thanks for adding me to the ring!

RELEASE NOTES:

Posting to AnglersRest on Saturday.

This hefty one arrived today, and I am keen to start reading. I'll be interested to see if I enjoy this one as I usually have similiar reading tastes to LyzzyBee! Thanks LB!

I did enjoy this book; it was a steady combination of history,travel,geology and social anthropology. It was a very informative book, but I did find, like LyzzyBee that the author was fairly clinical about how she pulled the threads of the book together, but nonetheless, I did find the book interesting.

Thanks for sharing. In the post to jubby on 30th April via surface mail.

Well, look what has returned home!

I am so pleased to see it!

Thank you very much to everyone who took part in this bookring, and a huge thank you to AnglersRest.