Llewelyn
The Book of Stones
$29.95
A comprehensive encyclopedia of minerals, gems, and crystals, this book is for practitioners, researchers, and anyone who wants to get beyond the basics in their knowledge and use of stones in healing and spiritual contexts. Full-color photos are accompanied by text that starts with a basic guide to the key words, elements, and chakras each rock represents, is followed by a description for identification purposes, and then contains essays by each author, talking about their experience with the stone, its energies and uses, and offering specific notes on its spiritual, physical, and emotional properties as well as affirmations that can be used to good effect with the stone. Some minimal front and back matter offers instructions for meditating with stones and the authors' thoughts about crystal theory, but the stones themselves are the real star of the show, and their descriptions take up the bulk of this weighty text.