PRECIOUS

A brightly entertaining natural and cultural history of gemstones and the worlds they contain.

The title may bring to mind Tolkien’s ring-obsessed Gollum, and indeed there are a few grasping, jewel-smitten characters in Molesworth’s survey. The book, she writes, was born of her long career in gemology, inspired by a remark her father made when she confessed that she wanted to work in neither the corporate world nor academia: “Hair, makeup, clothes, jewelry. Pick one.” She chose wisely, for, as her book recounts, she’s done a little bit of everything, serving as curator, cataloger, auctioneer, appraiser, and all-around scholar, working in a field that is “almost a perfect synthesis of every subject under the sun.” Sometimes her enthusiasm builds to a geekfest, as when, in a swoon of gemological language, she recounts all the different jades that aren’t really jades: “a mishmash of tough, translucent-to-opaque greenish materials such as serpentine, bowenite, amazonite, marble, quartzite, and chrysoprase.” In fact, as she goes on to note, what is classified today as “true jade” is either nephrite or jadeite. There’s a lively smattering of cocktail-party-worthy trivia on every page: the origins of the “eternity ring,” courtesy of a marketing genius at De Beers who had to figure out what to do with a glut of small diamonds introduced from Siberian mines in the 1950s; the history of the massive tanzanite ring that Beyoncé wore after her first child was born, as well as the tsavorite ring Jay-Z gave her, “now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.” A highlight in a book full of them is Molesworth’s considered judgment that the references to rubies in the Old Testament “were almost certainly to garnet,” a little stone that earns a little more love thanks to her generous assessment of its significance.

An overstuffed, endlessly interesting treat for anyone interested in any aspect of jewels.