Customer Reviews

The Rock Book

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Carroll Lane Fenton and Mildred Adams Fenton wrote the very popular "The Rock Book" originally in 1940. The book was republished by Dover in 2003 with additional chapters by the Australian paleontologists Thomas H. Rich and Patricia Vickers-Rich. In doing so they made available a classic text which has not been supplanted in 60 years! While a bit dated, it is one of the few books that treat the middle ground between geology texts and mineralogy guides. The new chapters bring it more up to date, but the main text has not been altered.

Those of us who are not geologists but want to understand the formation, age and construction of our geological landscapes are well served by this book. What surprises me is that nobody has written a similar text of this caliber in the interval since this book was first published!

I highly recommend this tome for anyone who wants to understand the world around them and how the rocks are constructed.

I've recently gotten interested in mineralogy and geology, and this book was given in a bibliography as being one of the best books for learning about the various types of rocks. It's a reprint of a work originally done in 1940 by two sisters, and it was reprinted in 2003. It also includes material from another book they wrote, "The Fossil Book".

I found the book to be well-written and easy to read. Even though it's not the latest interactive media or up-to-date with the latest research, the material in this book is relevant to the beginning geologist or mineral hunter. After reading this book, I have a much better understanding of the types of rocks and how they're formed from the minerals that I'm looking to collect.

This is definitely a book that should be in your library!