Rocks & Minerals: The Definitive Visual Guide

Brilliant book Absorbing read Great photos and illustrations

An excellent book -. more like an encyclopedia. I purchased it for a. friend's seven-year old who we took to the city museum during the school summer break. After buying him a gemstone he needed a book to identify it. It probably details every gemstone known but a little too technical for a seven-year-old. Still, for an adult you can't go wrong.

I ordered this as a Christmas present for my nephew who has developed an interest in gemstones and minerals. It's a little above his age range at present ( 9 yrs) but because the book contains such a wealth of information I decided that it is something that he'll get a lot out of as he grows into the subject. The text is challenging ( obviously many scientific terms that frankly I had to look up) but for a 10 yr old with excellent reading skills it's manageable with a bit of help from an adult on the terminology . The book is aimed at adults so I certainly wouldn't suggest this as suitable for a 10+ child unless they were particularly interested in the subject matter. It is a great reference work for adults interested in a good overview of most of the worlds rocks and minerals. The section on fossils is very small but then the book doesn't pretend to be primarily about them. It it's a book on fossils you are after then this may not be the one for you. The layout of the book clearly intends it to be a reference work that the reader 'dips' in and out of rather than ploughing all the way through and it is packed with fascinating information.

The book is fabulous but the text is really tiny. 9yr old grandson loved it so that's why the 5 star review

I LOVE this book. The content, pictures, type of binding etc are perfect. Only thing I dislike is how small the print is. I doubt I would have bought it if I saw it first in a book shop. I'm in my 50s, and my eyesight is average for an old dear. But I'm struggling to read the size of print. I did think of returning it. However, I loved the actual contents of the book so much, I decided to keep it. It's a beautiful book, typical of DK standard. I just wish it was a slightly bigger size book and therefore a bigger print. One of my photos shows the book alongside another large reference text book that I would call 'normal size print'. Another photo shows it in relation to a normal sized paperback novel. So you can see the print in this book is unusually small, for a large text book! BUT...I would still recommend, if you can cope with small print, as it's a stunning book otherwise. I only dropped one star due to the print size.

A great reference, written and illustrated for anybody starting off on an interesting hobby

Fantastic book! Cannot stop reading it 🤩

Very interesting and informative book with great illustrations. Even better than I had expected.

This book has everything I could possible learn about rocks and minerals. The descriptions and pictures are wonderful and I highly recommend this book if you are interested and if this is your hobby, too!

Good product

A very thoroughly researched and thoughtfully edited book. The pictures are high quality, and the paper is thick and glossy. Its such an exquisite book to spend some quality time on. If only the editors had included a periodic table, this would have been given a 5 star.

Great read and pictures

Nice book