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Jewels: A Secret History by Victoria Finlay (Paperback / softback)

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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 rthern 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.

Product Identifiers

Publisher
Random House USA Inc, Random House Inc
ISBN-10
0345466950
ISBN-13
9780345466952
eBay Product ID (ePID)
183139198

Product Key Features

Author
Victoria Finlay
Format
Paperback / Softback, Trade Paperback (US) ,Unsewn / Adhesive Bound
Language
English
Topic
History: World & General

Additional Product Features

Place of Publication
New York
Content Note
Illustrations
Author Biography
Victoria Finlay studied social anthropology at the University of St. Andrews and the College of William & Mary, Virginia, before working for Reuters in London and Scandinavia. She spent twelve years as a journalist in Hong Kong, five of them as arts editor of The South China Morning Post, where she also presented a weekly radio program. She now lives in Somerset in southwest England, and divides her time between researching her next book and working for an international environmental charity, www.arcworld.org. Jewels is her third book. From the Hardcover edition.
Country of Publication
United States

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Picture 1 of 1

Jewels: A Secret History by Victoria Finlay (Paperback / softback)

About this product

Product Information

Product Identifiers

Product Key Features

Additional Product Features

Best Selling in Books

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KJV, Gift and Award Bible, Leather-Look, Black, Red Letter, Comfort Print: Holy Bible, King James Version by Zondervan (Paperback, 2017)

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The Tintin Collection (The Adventures of Tintin - Compact Editions) by Herge (Hardcover, 2015)

The Orthodox Study Bible, Hardcover: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World (Hardcover, 2008)

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