Simon & Schuster's Guide to Rocks & Minerals

Simon & Schuster's Guide to Rocks & Minerals is a beautifully illustrated, user-friendly field guide that stands out for its visual appeal and comprehensive content. With over 1,000 illustrations—600 in full color—this book makes rock and mineral identification both accessible and engaging. Divided into separate sections for rocks and minerals, the guide covers a wide range of essential topics, from formation and classification to rarity and mode of occurrence. Each entry is supported by vivid photographs and helpful symbols, making it ideal for collectors, students, and curious amateurs alike. Its straightforward layout and practical information make it a fantastic reference whether you're just getting started or expanding your geological knowledge.

I bought this book on a recommendation from a geology professor. There are other good books, but a strong advantage to this book is how the photo of a rock or mineral is directly adjacent to the written description. That’s not the case with some other popular rock and mineral guides. The photos in this sometimes look like they were taken before digital cameras, being somewhat less than super sharp and in dark colors, so it’s not perfect, but as a small, relatively inexpensive but inclusive field guide it’s easy to use. Repeated exposure to names, descriptions and photos in a very accessible guide book really does help me memorize unfamiliar rocks or minerals. I keep the book on hand, and I’m enough of a nerd to enjoy plain old browsing through the large number of listings. Recommend.

Love this series of reference books. Has full color pages and quality information. Nice to see cut and uncut gems for better identification.

This guide has a few more minerals than my favorite, "The National Audubon Society's Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals," but it's organization is not as good. The main thing that this book has that the Audubon guide does not is information on optical data. If you are going to be looking at samples under a microscope in thin section, then you probably need this book, too. If you are not going to be using a microscope, get the Audubon Guide. National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Rocks and Minerals (National Audubon Society Field Guides)

The book is chock full of information but much of the introductory material seems to assume some knowledge of the field. If you are already involved in rocks and minerals, it is very good. It is not a “key” in the sense you can look at some specimen and the guide will take you through the steps needed to identify it.

This was the perfect book for my crystal class.

An excellent, easily transportable field guide with plenty of photos, this used book arrived in virtually like-new condition. While the explication of Miller Indices was somewhat rarefied and outdated, the volume is recommended for all serious rockhounds and amateur geologists.

Easy to use. Lots of information. I bought this because a geologist recommended it as a good choice, and I have to agree.

Pocket guides are okay but for me one day becoming mineralogist, Rocks and Minerals is the most comprehensive, The main reasons for this is the amount of pages dedicated to a wide range of minerals where most pocket guides fall short. There is also a an excellent section on rocks which will prove a mighty tool for identification.

石、ミネラルのフィールドガイドである。情報量はかなりあるのだが、何といっても読みづらい。辞が細かく、また英語が分かりくい。内容的にはそれほど悪くはないのだが・・・・・残念である。英語に自信の無い方には、あまりお勧めできない。また、解説が複雑なため、フィールドに実際に持って出るのには向かないだろう。写真の質は極端に悪いわけではないが、それほど良くも無い。

Gr8 book and I am very happy and thanks amazon

Il prodotto ha soddisfatto pienamente le aspettative, vivamente consigliato a chiunque voglia cimentarsi nel riconoscimento e classificazione di minerali e rocce

Love the beautiful photos and clear descriptions. I recently got interested in rockhounding and find this book very helpful.