"Jewels - A Secret History" by Victoria Finlay

This is the book I am reading now. It talks about the stories of ten kinds of precious stones. The same author used to complete a book about colour. This book is interesting to me because it is about various aspects about a gem. The historical events and anecdotes about a gem, the archeological background, and its meaning in a particular culture. It seems that such kind of "microhistory" is quite popular during these days. Perhaps it's because the stories are closer to our daily life, to the world we are more familiar with. Also these stories are told in a more pleasant, less serious way. Reading this book is like attending one course in my senior year in university: Introduction to German Culture. Our professor Mr. Martin Müller is an erudite scholar, a sinologist and a philosophor. He elaborated the amazing secrets behind the construction of old cathedral and its significance in the western history. I am just very fascinated with these trivial details that is not really worth anything. I can simply feel excitement and joy with my little discovery. For example, in this book, it mentions that black as the color of grieving is the tradition of the Greeks and Roman. But in other places, people mourn in difference colos like sky blue, brown, white or even yellow. It may seem a waste of time now. But what I'd like to do is someday to get something out of these and come up with something of my own...