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Jewels
- A Secret History
- Narrated by: Victoria Finlay
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
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Publisher's summary
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 northern 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.
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,286
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,285
In June 1867, Mark Twain set out for Europe and the Holy Land on the paddle steamer Quaker City. His enduring, no-nonsense guide for the first-time traveler also served as an antidote to the insufferably romantic travel books of the period.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Twain's Hidden Gem
- By Cynthia Franks on 05-08-12
By: Mark Twain
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On the Plain of Snakes
- By: Paul Theroux
- Narrated by: Joseph Balderrama
- Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 146
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 126
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 126
Nogales is a border town caught between Mexico and the United States of America. A 40-foot steel fence runs through its centre, separating the prosperous US side from the impoverished Mexican side. It is a fascinating site of tension, now more than ever, as the town fills with hopeful border crossers and the deportees who have been caught and brought back. And it is here that Paul Theroux will begin his journey into the culturally rich but troubled heart of modern Mexico.
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2 out of 5 stars
-
A pedantic, poorly narrated, 20 hour lecture
- By Birdshot on 11-16-19
By: Paul Theroux
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Desert Notebooks
- A Road Map for the End of Time
- By: Ben Ehrenreich
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Layering climate science, mythologies, nature writing, and personal experiences, Desert Notebooks offers a vital and necessary chronicle of our past and our present - perfect for fans of Robert Macfarlane and Elizabeth Rush - that’s unflinching, urgent, and yet timeless and profound.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Not about the desert, Not about Joshua Tree
- By Steve on 07-12-20
By: Ben Ehrenreich
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The Fossil Hunter
- Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Whose Discoveries Changed the World
- By: Shelley Emling
- Narrated by: Rachael Beresford
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 32
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
Mary Anning was only 12 years old when, in 1811, she discovered the first dinosaur skeleton - of an ichthyosaur - while fossil hunting on the cliffs of Lyme Regis, England. Until Mary's incredible discovery, it was widely believed that animals did not become extinct.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Well researched
- By Nick Cox on 11-14-20
By: Shelley Emling
-
The Map That Changed the World
- William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology
- By: Simon Winchester
- Narrated by: Simon Winchester
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 675
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 438
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 441
In 1793 William Smith, a canal digger, made a startling discovery that was to turn the fledgling science of the history of the earth - and a central plank of established Christian religion - on its head. He noticed that the rocks he was excavating were arranged in layers; more important, he could see quite clearly that the fossils found in one layer were very different from those found in another. And out of that realization came an epiphany.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Who knew rocks could be so deceptive?
- By Jody R. Nathan on 11-09-04
By: Simon Winchester
-
Life and Death in the Andes
- On the Trail of Bandits, Heroes, and Revolutionaries
- By: Kim MacQuarrie
- Narrated by: Jonathan Yen
- Length: 16 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 71
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 64
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
The Andes Mountains are the world's longest mountain chain, linking most of the countries in South America. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker and author Kim MacQuarrie takes us on a historical journey through this unique region, bringing fresh insight and contemporary connections to such fabled characters as Charles Darwin, Pablo Escobar, Che Guevara, and many others.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Another Great by Kim MacQuarrie
- By Than on 03-25-24
By: Kim MacQuarrie
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Stoned
- Jewelry, Obsession, and How Desire Shapes the World
- By: Aja Raden
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 252
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 212
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 210
What makes a stone a jewel? What makes a jewel priceless? And why do we covet beautiful things? In this brilliant account of how eight jewels shaped the course of history, jeweler and scientist Aja Raden tells an original and often startling story about our unshakeable addiction to beauty and the darker side of human desire.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Cringe-inducing, vapid, and self-conscious
- By Adeliese Baumann on 12-27-16
By: Aja Raden
-
Archaeology from Space
- How the Future Shapes Our Past
- By: Sarah Parcak
- Narrated by: Sarah Parcak
- Length: 8 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 98
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 86
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 86
In Archaeology from Space, Sarah Parcak shows the evolution, major discoveries, and future potential of the young field of satellite archaeology. From surprise advancements after the declassification of spy photography, to a new map of the mythical Egyptian city of Tanis, she shares her field's biggest discoveries, revealing why space archaeology is not only exciting, but urgently essential to the preservation of the world's ancient treasures.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
So excited
- By Michael G Bell on 05-15-21
By: Sarah Parcak
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Periodic Tales
- A Cultural History of the Elements, From Arsenic to Zinc
- By: Hugh Aldersey-Williams
- Narrated by: Antony Ferguson
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 532
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 471
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 472
Like the alphabet, the calendar, or the zodiac, the periodic table of the chemical elements has a permanent place in our imagination. But aside from the handful of common ones (iron, carbon, copper, gold), the elements themselves remain wrapped in mystery. We do not know what most of them look like, how they exist in nature, how they got their names, or of what use they are to us.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Interesting but Rambling
- By Carolyn on 08-24-15
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Mudlark
- In Search of London's Past Along the River Thames
- By: Lara Maiklem
- Narrated by: Xanthe Elbrick
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 91
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 74
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 73
A quixotic journey through London's past, Mudlark plumbs the banks of the Thames to reveal the stories hidden behind the archaeological remnants of an ancient city. Long heralded as a city treasure herself, expert "mudlarker" Lara Maiklem is uniquely trained in the art of seeking. Tirelessly trekking across miles of the Thames' muddy shores, where others only see the detritus of city life, Maiklem unearths evidence of England's captivating, if sometimes murky, history - with some objects dating back to 43 AD, when London was but an outpost of the Roman Empire.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
thoroughly enjoyed
- By j on 11-21-20
By: Lara Maiklem
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The Last Jews of Kerala
- The Two Thousand Year History of India’s Forgotten Jewish Community
- By: Edna Fernandes
- Narrated by: Leslie Bellair
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 68
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 58
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 59
When a people die out, can their story survive?Two thousand years ago, trade routes and the fall of Jerusalem took Jewish settlers seeking sanctuary across Europe and Asia. One little-known group settled in Kerala, in tropical southwestern India. Eventually numbering in the thousands, with eight synagogues, they prospered. Some came to possess vast estates and plantations, and many enjoyed economic privilege and political influence.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting topic, unethical author, uninformed reader
- By Cameron Crane on 03-08-18
By: Edna Fernandes
-
Oak Flat
- A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West
- By: Lauren Redniss
- Narrated by: Lauren Redniss, Darrell Dennis, Kyla Garcia, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 27
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 23
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 24
Oak Flat is a serene high-elevation mesa that sits above the Southeastern Arizona desert, 15 miles to the west of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. For the San Carlos tribe, Oak Flat is a holy place, an ancient burial ground and religious site where Apache girls celebrate the coming-of-age ritual known as the Sunrise Ceremony. In 1995, a massive untapped copper reserve was discovered nearby.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful Story
- By Amazon Customer on 11-23-21
By: Lauren Redniss
-
The Discovery of France
- A Historical Geography
- By: Graham Robb
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 35
A narrative of exploration - full of strange landscapes and even stranger inhabitants - that explains the enduring fascination of France. While Gustave Eiffel was changing the skyline of Paris, large parts of France were still terra incognita. Even in the age of railways and newspapers, France was a land of ancient tribal divisions, prehistoric communication networks, and pre-Christian beliefs. French itself was a minority language.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great history of the cultural formation of France
- By Scotty on 07-31-21
By: Graham Robb
-
Mesoamerican Mythology
- Fascinating Myths and Legends of Gods, Goddesses, Heroes and Monster from the Ancient Maya, Inca and Aztec Mythology
- By: Simon Lopez
- Narrated by: Neil Hamilton
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 41
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 42
Do you know that the Mayans believed that the Earth was flat with four poles supporting the sky? Or that the Inca Emperors were thought to be the direct descendant of the sun god himself? The early Mesoamericans were a mysterious bunch. In this audiobook we will dive deep into their world of Myths and captivating stories of the creation of the world, adventures of heroes and even love stories between goddess and mortal.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Modern Twist
- By A. Capps on 12-27-19
By: Simon Lopez
-
Sovietistan
- Travels in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan
- By: Erika Fatland
- Narrated by: Jill Rolls
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 58
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 52
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 52
Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan became free of the Soviet Union in 1991. But though they are new to modern statehood, this is a region rich in ancient history, culture, and landscapes unlike anywhere else in the world. Traveling alone, Erika Fatland is a true adventurer in every sense. In Sovietistan, she takes the listener on a compassionate and insightful journey to explore how their Soviet heritage has influenced these countries, with governments experimenting with both democracy and dictatorships.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Outstanding book
- By George MP on 04-24-22
By: Erika Fatland
-
The Lost Empire of Atlantis
- History's Greatest Mystery Revealed
- By: Gavin Menzies
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 185
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 163
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 161
New York Times bestselling historian Gavin Menzies presents newly uncovered evidence revealing, conclusively, that “the lost city of Atlantis” was not only real but also at the heart of a highly advanced global empire that reached the shores of America before being violently wiped from the earth. For three millennia, the legend of Atlantis has gripped the imaginations of explorers, philosophers, occultists, treasure hunters, historians, and archaeologists. Until now, it has remained shrouded in myth. Yet, like ancient Troy, is it possible that this fabled city actually existed?
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Absolutely abominable!
- By Magdalene on 03-05-18
By: Gavin Menzies
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How is a handmade fabric helping save an ancient forest? Why is a famous fabric pattern from India best known by the name of a Scottish town? How is a Chinese dragon robe a diagram of the whole universe? What is the difference between how the Greek Fates and the Viking Norns used threads to tell our destiny? In Fabric, bestselling author Victoria Finlay spins us round the globe, weaving stories of our relationship with cloth and asking how and why people through the ages have made it, worn it, invented it, and made symbols out of it. And sometimes why they have fought for it.
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Color
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In this vivid and captivating journey through the colors of an artist’s palette, Victoria Finlay takes us on an enthralling adventure around the world and through the ages, illuminating how the colors we choose to value have determined the history of culture itself. Color is full of extraordinary people, events, and anecdotes—painted all the more dazzling by Finlay’s engaging style. The colors that craft our world have never looked so bright.
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The Fabric of Civilization
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The story of humanity is the story of textiles - as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Pop journalism article lengthened into a book
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 9
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Stones have furnished our earliest technologies and our first art materials. As jewelry and talismans, they have accompanied us in our journeys into the afterlife. We have carried stones over vast distances, erecting temples with them where we gathered to worship our gods. The earliest scientists ground and processed minerals in a centuries-long quest for a mythic stone that would prolong human life. Michelangelo climbed mountains in Tuscany searching for the sugar-white marble that would yield his sculptures.
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The Cartiers is the revealing tale of a jewelry dynasty—four generations, from revolutionary France to the 1970s. At its heart are the three Cartier brothers whose motto was “Never copy, only create” and who made their family firm internationally famous in the early days of the twentieth century, thanks to their unique and complementary talents.
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From colorful 30,000-year-old threads found on the floor of a Georgian cave to the Indian calicoes that sparked the Industrial Revolution, The Golden Thread weaves an illuminating story of human ingenuity. Design journalist Kassia St. Clair guides us through the technological advancements and cultural customs that would redefine human civilization - from the fabric that allowed mankind to achieve extraordinary things (traverse the oceans and shatter athletic records) and survive in unlikely places (outer space and the South Pole).
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The Secret Lives of Color
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The Secret Lives of Color tells the unusual stories of 75 fascinating shades, dyes, and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso’s blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history. In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from into a unique study of human civilization.
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3 out of 5 stars
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More about pigments than social history
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For centuries, clothing has been a wearable status symbol; fashion, a weapon in struggles for social change; and dress codes, a way to maintain political control. Dress codes evolved along with the social and political ideals of the day, but they always reflected struggles for power and status.
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Unlistenable
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Worn
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Sofi Thanhauser brilliantly tells five stories—Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics, Wool—about the clothes we wear and where they come from, illuminating our world in unexpected ways. She takes us from the opulent court of Louis XIV to the labor camps in modern-day Chinese-occupied Xinjiang. We see how textiles were once dyed with lichen, shells, bark, saffron, and beetles, displaying distinctive regional weaves and knits, and how the modern Western garment industry has refashioned our attire into the homogenous and disposable uniforms popularized by fast-fashion brands.
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Horrors of the industrial revolution Continued
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Papyrus
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Long before books were mass-produced, scrolls hand-copied on reeds pulled from the Nile were the treasures of the ancient world. Papyrus is the story of the book’s journey from oral tradition to scrolls to codices, and how that transition laid the very foundation of Western culture. Irene Vallejo evokes the great mosaic of literature in the ancient world, all the while illuminating how ancient ideas about education, censorship, authority, and identity still resonate today.
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Great read
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Ravenfall
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Thirteen-year-old Anna Ballinkay has never been normal. Her family uses their psychic abilities to help run the Ravenfall Inn, a magical B&B between the human world and the Otherworld. But it’s hard to contribute when your only power is foreseeing death. So when fourteen-year-old Colin Pierce arrives at Ravenfall searching for his missing older brother, Anna jumps at the chance to help. But the mysteries tied to Colin go much deeper than either of them expects...
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5 out of 5 stars
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A quick read full of twists, turns and adventure
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Women's Work
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 154
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 153
Twenty thousand years ago, women were making and wearing the first clothing created from spun fibers. In fact, right up to the Industrial Revolution the fiber arts were an enormous economic force, belonging primarily to women. Despite the great toil required in making cloth and clothing, most books on ancient history and economics have no information on them. Much of this gap results from the extreme perishability of what women produced, but it seems clear that until now descriptions of prehistoric and early historic cultures have omitted virtually half the picture.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Respectful treatment of the archeological record.
- By fiberflair on 02-23-21
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A Natural History of Color
- The Science Behind What We See and How We See It
- By: Rob DeSalle, Hans Bachor
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 14
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 12
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Story4 out of 5 stars 12
Over the years, color has dazzled, enhanced, and clarified the world we see. The experimental palettes of painting, the advent of the color photograph, Technicolor pictures, color printing, and so on have created a vivid and vibrant continuum. These ways of representing reality in “living color” echo our evolutionary reliance on and indeed privileging of color as a complex and vital form of consumption, classification, and creation. It’s everywhere we look, yet do we really know much of anything about it?
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5 out of 5 stars
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This Is An Excellent Book
- By R. Martocci on 12-01-20
By: Rob DeSalle, and others
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The Matter of Everything
- How Curiosity, Physics, and Improbable Experiments Changed the World
- By: Suzie Sheehy
- Narrated by: Suzie Sheehy
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 23
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 21
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 21
Physics has always been engaged in the pursuit of expanding our knowledge of the nature of matter and the world around us. But how can you use experiments to further this quest? How do you measure the mass of a particle a trillion times smaller than a grain of sand? And, finally, why is all this important? In The Matter of Everything, accelerator physicist Suzie Sheehy introduces us to the people who, through a combination of genius, persistence and luck, staged the experiments that changed the course of history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding History of Curiosity-Driven Science
- By Ryan on 04-29-23
By: Suzie Sheehy
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The Ruin of All Witches
- Life and Death in the New World
- By: Malcolm Gaskill
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 57
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 56
In Springfield, Massachusetts in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails, property vanishes, and people suffer convulsions as if possessed by demons. A woman is seen wading through the swamp like a lost soul. Disturbing dreams and visions proliferate. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics and the community becomes tangled in a web of distrust, resentment and denunciation.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great story
- By Michael on 11-18-22
By: Malcolm Gaskill
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The Creative Spark
- How Imagination Made Humans Exceptional
- By: Agustín Fuentes
- Narrated by: Agustín Fuentes
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 148
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 126
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 124
In the tradition of Jared Diamond's million-copy-selling classic Guns, Germs, and Steel, a bold new synthesis of paleontology, archaeology, genetics, and anthropology that overturns misconceptions about race, war and peace, and human nature itself, answering an age-old question: What made humans so exceptional among all the species on Earth? Creativity. It is the secret of what makes humans special, hiding in plain sight.
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4 out of 5 stars
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What's new?
- By Mark on 05-02-17
By: Agustín Fuentes
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Nobody's Normal
- How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness
- By: Roy Richard Grinker
- Narrated by: Lyle Blaker
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 56
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 55
A compassionate and captivating examination of evolving attitudes toward mental illness throughout history and the fight to end the stigma. For centuries, scientists and society cast moral judgments on anyone deemed mentally ill, confining many to asylums. In Nobody’s Normal, anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker chronicles the progress and setbacks in the struggle against mental-illness stigma - from the 18th century, through America’s major wars, and into today’s high-tech economy.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Very informative
- By Monisha on 09-26-22
What listeners say about Jewels
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kindle Customer
- 04-18-23
Social history of gems
This is a social history of the people involved in finding, mining, finishing and selling gemstones.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Jeremy
- 07-20-23
a great primer for those into gems
I liked this book very much but would have loved for it to be longer. The story of how the author got her engagement ring with Byzantine mosaics is amazing and I would love to have heard more about the provenance of the stones and glass in her ring.
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