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120 of 124 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A means of expanding upon Vol. I, June 27, 2009
This review is from: Crystal Bible 2 (Paperback)
Although Judy Hall's books don't generally do it for me, I do recommend both volumes of the Crystal Bible. In fact, bypass all her other recent works for these two. It will be more complete than juggling three or four volumes.
This book is like many of her others, with listings of hundreds of stones and their many different forms. The entries are a little bit more simplified than in the first volume, and there is no easy summary of the properties of any stone. The strength of this work is that it is arranged alphabetically, rather than by colour, wherein several of her others are less user-friendly for the opposite reason. There are still some misnomers and photographs that are not exactly representative of the crystal being defined, as well as a seemingly missing understanding of the mineralogical properties of the specimens being described. Some of the entries appear to be inconsistent and incongruent with those around them. This is possibly an error in publishing, and a second printing or edition may have these errata corrected.
This volume contains more than two hundred stones not mentioned in volume one. To my knowledge there are no repeats from said volume. the book covers a lot of formations and findings that are very recent and otherwise unpublished about. Several stones have their trade names used, which do not reflect the mineral being described, and others are merely tyographically incorrect (i.e. "Brandenberg" where Brandberg should be used).
With some simple and effective introductory chapters regarding the history and lore of the mineral kingdom, and New Age crystal topics such as grids, new areas of mining, and stones with high frequencies, you'll find that this book is a nice companion to any crystal library.
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62 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not quite as good, July 17, 2009
This review is from: Crystal Bible 2 (Paperback)
I am usually a fan of Judy Hall's books, they are a good reference even though at times they can be a bit too New Agey for my liking. The information is usually correct, but I noticed with this book there are several bits of information that is incorrect.
Examples:
Blue Moonstone is only found in Russia, this is incorrect Sri lanka is one of the finest producers of this stone
Paraiba Tourmaline comes from Brazil, Nigeria and Mozambique. Paraiba Tourmaline only comes from Paraiba Brazil...everything else is just Tourmaline
Herkimer Diamonds come from New York, Himalayas and China. Same with the Paraibas, Herkimer Diamonds only come from Herkimer New York, anything else is a double Terminated Quartz.
It is mainly little things like locations that are incorrect, but since this is a book that people are turning to for information it should be correct and properly researched.
This was the only problem I had with this book, the photos, layout and other features I found useful.
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50 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
My Thougts on This Book, July 15, 2009
This review is from: Crystal Bible 2 (Paperback)
A nice supplement to the Crystal Bible which was one of my first crystal/mineral books and is still one of my favorites. However... I'm not as complete of a fan of Crystal Bible 2 as I am of the original. Some (and I'm saying only some) of the info seems quite hastily put together, and in my opinion isn't a complete description of the attributes of that particualr crystal or mineral. There's one in there that I don't agree with at all from my personal work with that mineral, but I choose not to mention which one that is in this forum. I've also noticed a couple of unusual spellings for names of a particular crystal or mineral.
One thing in particular I'd like to point out. Septarian is a combination of Calcite, Bentonite and Aragonite, not Calcite, Aragonite, and Chalcedony...but I suppose that could depend on who you ask. My gut still says the first combination of minerals is correct.
Now that I've aired my concerns a bit, I will say that I'm not unhappy with this book. Perhaps my personal knowledge and skills have just developed beyond the point of being able to accept everything said by Judy as 100% complete and accurate. I think it's a good reference tool, but I would not use as my *only* reference tool. I'm not sorry I purchased this book, would do so again, and have already recommended it to others.
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