Books like "Formed Stones", Folklore and Fossils — picked by fans

My copy (published in 1954) is a childhood gift that I have treasured for more than 50 years. Flicking through the well-thumbed and weather beaten pages brings back so many wonderful memories of holidays and collecting trips.

As an avid collector of pebbles from an early age, this was the book that fuelled my interest in geology. Amazed to find that no two pebbles were the same or had the same story, I was fascinated by their diversity and beauty, what they were made of, and how they were formed.

When the book was re-issued in 2018, I couldn’t resist buying another copy. I read it from cover to cover with as much excitement as I had as a child and was reminded that this was the book that inspired me to become a professional geologist.

This is the book that I wish I had written. So many times I have thought about going on the travels that Victoria followed, but life got in the way, and I never made the all the journeys. Reading the book and following Victoria’s quest, even as an "armchair traveller," really brought the stories of the gemstones alive and answered questions that I had about the people, the places, and the politics of gemstones and the jewellery trade.

I loved that she started out with a simple idea, to find out more about her engagement ring, and then how much more she became interested in along the way and how her travels impacted her knowledge of gemstones and her outlook on life.

I am in awe of the sheer breadth of knowledge in this book about diamonds. I am amazed that diamond has such simple chemistry, made by bonding carbon atoms, yet forms the hardest natural substance known. Scientific experts, including geologists, gemmologists, and physicists, tell the story of its formation, exploration, mining, and economic value, but I found that there is so much more in this book of interest than just the science.

What I particularly liked was reading about the cultural nature of diamonds and what makes diamond so special to so many people worldwide from artisanal miners scraping a living out of the ground, to monarchs and millionaires who adorn themselves with diamond jewellery.

The new technologies of making diamonds in the laboratory left me wondering what that might mean for the future of diamond mining and sales.

I find it difficult to walk past second-hand bookshops and charity shops and often find myself drawn to the antique books and children’s adventure books from the 19th and 20th century. The older, the better, and if they are about stones, pebbles, or gemstones, whether fact or fiction, I find them hard to resist. One of my recent finds, this book was published in 1960 and is an adventure story. It is part of The Boys’ and Girls’ Library—School and adventure stories by well-known authors.

I love the excitement and adventure that the boys get up to and their well-meaning antics, which usually land them in some dire situation that they either have to escape from or be rescued from. And there’s plenty for me to learn about the life of the opal miners and the geology.

It’s one thing to appreciate that fossils record the history of life, but something else altogether to understand how we came to know that. Rudwick’s classic book recounts the discoveries, large and small, that over centuries revealed fossils to be remnants of lost worlds. An exceptional exercise in the history of science. The Meaning of Fossils is required reading for students of paleontology.

Planet Ocean is a rollicking romp of a book, even while it is being deeply informative. The writing is full of wit and story, with a strong undertow of awe at the wonders of evolution and geologic time. We learn about these things along with Matsen as he and Troll go on a trilobite safari, visit museums and scientists, and dig for dinosaurs in the badlands of Alberta. The book is lavishly illustrated with Troll’s surreal, sublime, whimsical, and always arresting depictions of such creatures as Xiphactinus, Anomalocaris, Hesperornis, Hallucigenia, and of course Helicoprion.

What I love about this book is the pattern of step-by-step questions posed to the young reader about what kind of dinosaur they would be if certain bones were added or lost to their skeletons, followed by a surprising answer. Not only does this book explore some of the most popular land-walking dinosaurs, it also extends to the first reptiles that flew (Pterosaurs) and others that swam in the seas. My favorite part of this book is that it brings readers to recognize that modern-day avian dinosaurs are still among us—in birds! Along with an ultimate invitation to step into the best place for observing and learning more about them, which is outdoors.

Harvard geobiologist Andy Knoll vividly captures the dynamic field of Precambrian paleontology in this unique, zippy read. Personalities—both fossils and the people who study them—come alive as Knoll races across the eons. With episodes from life’s enigmatic origins, to scrappy contentious black smudges that might or might not be the remains of cells, to some of the most exquisite and revealing microfossils on Earth, Life on a Young Planet takes its readers on a unique journey.

So often we find popular level dinosaur books with the most ridiculous and inaccurate illustrations. Usually, the fault lies with the middle-man – the children’s writer or the artist. In this book, we have an instance that is, luckily, becoming more common – the academic who has the skills to communicate directly with the general audience. Dr. Witton has the experience of studying fossil animals (pterosaurs are his specialty) and in his book demonstrates how the various aspects of his work command an accurate approach to his artwork (he is a superb artist). Any speculation in his book is based on his sound observations – who would have guessed that the keratinous covering of the horns of Triceratops continued to grow throughout life and so the horny sheaths would have produced weird curly structures like those of elderly sheep?

In more recent years, Jeannine Atkins has given us the beautifully written “novels-in-verse” Finding Wonders: Three Girls Who Changed Science and Grasping Mysteries: Girls Who Loved Math. The richly illustrated picture book Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon is one of Atkins’s earlier efforts to showcase the contributions women and girls have made to science. The story of Mary Anning is also important for what it tells us about the role of working-class people in the history of science. Mary’s father had been a carpenter until his untimely death, and the family supplemented their meager income by selling “curiosities” (i.e., fossils) they unearthed on the seashore near their home in Lyme Regis, England.

Mary’s careful reconstructions of fossils (including the world-famous ichthyosaur that she and her brother uncovered) helped transform the field of paleontology, earning her as much respect as a working-class woman could get in the world… show more.