Fallout from 2nd/3rd year undergraduate botany in the late 60s. Many thanks for the contact!

Lähettänyt: hfglen 2:07 pm (EST) Sep 8, 2008

Not a case of being hard to please - far more a case of being old enough to be cynical. I notice that you like Harry Potter books - actually I admire J K Rowling for the marvellous work she has done to encourage children to read - I just do not find HP to my taste and I am not ashamed to write this.

Lähettänyt: AndrewCottingham 7:59 am (EST) May 16, 2008

No, the book I have called Rocks and Minerals is a Golden Guide from St. Martin's Press and is by Paul R. Shaffer. Sorry

Lähettänyt: hilbertk 6:49 pm (EST) Apr 19, 2008

Yeah,I too have the 1957 edition of The Golden Guide to Rocks & Minerals By Zim. The YakRxK&Mins account is one i started for the library owned by our local Rock & Mineral Club of which i am the Librarian. I am Vanye & you may have visited my library in which there are quite a few geology, rock, Earth Science, & lapidary books including several Golden Guides a couple of which are hardcovers of somewhat larger format but other wise identical. Those are library discards. Other Golden Guides include; Fossils, Geology, Seashells, Indian Arts, Weather, Evolution & the Pacific Northwest. I had more of them before my housefire 3 yrs ago. I have given many copies of Rocks & Minerals to Juniors in our club over the years. Whenever i find them at Yard Sales or 2nd hand stores i always buy them. I'll have to visit your library! Vanye 8^) for Yakima Rock & Mineral Club

Lähettänyt: Vanye 2:13 am (EST) Mar 14, 2008

Hi, sorry it took me so long to get to your message. I have the book you are describing. The front cover has a pick ax and 6 different rocks it says:
"A Guide to Minerals, Gems, and Rocks
400 Illustrations in color"

The price in the upper right corner is $1.00. Across the bottom right justified is: "A Golden Nature Guide"
Title page: Rocks and Minerals A guide to familiar minerals, gems, ores and rocks by Herbert S. Zim
Paul R. Shaffer - Professor of Geology, University of Illinoil
Illustrated by Raymond Perlman - Professor of Art, University of Illinois
[pic of red gem]
A Golden Nature Guide
GOLDEN PRESS * NEW YORK

Page 4 starts the way you quoted; bottom has pic of bag, pick ax, chisel, pocket magnifier and this book.
Page 2 has the old car which is a red and white station wagon and 4 people picking at the side of the cliff the car is parked next to. The title of the page is The Earth and Its Rocks.

I just looked at the opposite page of the Title Page: "Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-8326
Copyright 1957, by Golden Press, Inc.[.........]Published Simultaneously in Canada by The Musson Book Company, Ltd., Toronto"

I hope I helped you with this...

LSA Mom

Lähettänyt: LukesSPIRITAcademy 8:29 am (EST) Feb 8, 2008

I'm very sorry my copy of the rocks and minerals book is packed away in storage at the moment. It does sound like the right book, but I couldn't be certain.

Lähettänyt: Oklahoma 9:31 pm (EST) Jan 12, 2008

Chiming in with the rest that I also had your book "Rocks and Minerals" by Herbert Spencer Zim. Actually, the one in my library is the updated version, "Rocks, Gems and Minerals", currently in print as of 2001. It appears the Golden Guides (much beloved by me as a child, and similarly loved by my mother in HER childhood) are being reprinted, and I'm looking forward to purchasing them all myself, for my future children to enjoy. Love that pocket size.

Enjoy your book! :)

Lähettänyt: hoshichan 2:08 pm (EST) Nov 5, 2007

Hi, glanecia.
Yep, chalk up one more vote for the "Rocks And Minerals" Golden Guide. Mine is also copyright 1957 and the cover shown in my LT library matches my book. From looking at the "Books we share" column, it looks like yours is entered as being by Paul R. Shafer, but the title page of mine credits the authors as "Herbert S. Zim and Paul R. Shafer" (in that order). (Illustrated by Raymond Perlman).
Hope this helps!
Take care,
John

Lähettänyt: SpacemanSpiff 10:14 pm (EST) Oct 31, 2007

Hi, I just got your comment regarding Paolini and the Inheritance trilogy vs. Dragonriders of Pern. Those books were a huge influence in my life: they were one of the first sf/f books I read. I've read the two Inheritance books out so far, and I find them to be heavily derivative (especially of Star Wars); I hope Paolini does better in his future (and I do think he can do so). In any case, Dragonriders are a great series and totally worth the read.

Lähettänyt: Xallanthia 11:22 pm (EST) Oct 28, 2007

I concur. Good way to start a community among Golden Guides collectors.

Lähettänyt: mobill76_own 9:55 pm (EST) Oct 28, 2007

Hi Glanecia,

I just got your message. The book I've got doesn't match with yours at all - it may be a similar UK edition, though. From the messages, it looks like you have it identified already.

Lähettänyt: DanCook 1:16 pm (EST) Oct 28, 2007

Rocks and Minerals is the book that I have as well. The quote and picture you mentioned occur in the same place in my book. Mine was published in 1957.

Lähettänyt: mikallofgren 8:29 am (EST) Oct 25, 2007

Yes, that is the book that I have. It sounds like you have the same one.

Lähettänyt: white_Dandelion 6:34 am (EST) Oct 25, 2007

I'll chime in with everyone else and say, yep, that's the one. Mine is missing the cover as well; I have several of the Golden Nature Guides and this is the one that's taken the worst beating. This one was my dad's when he was in grad school (geology, Southern Illinois U) in the late '60s. Interestingly, the geology grad student currently working at my company has his own ancient copy.

Lähettänyt: boltgirl 12:29 am (EST) Oct 25, 2007

That's the rocks and minerals book I have as well.

Lähettänyt: MaWhit 11:59 pm (EST) Oct 24, 2007

p.s. the car on page 5 is a 1957 Buick, I believe.
Tiffin

Lähettänyt: tiffin 8:34 pm (EST) Oct 24, 2007

Dear Glanecia

After receiving your message about the possibility that your book was "Rocks and Minerals A Guide To Familiar Minerals, Gems, Ores, and Rocks," I went down to the basement and got the book. The first words on page four are exactly as you quote them. Therefore, I think this is the book. If you need more information, feel free to reply, and I will tell you what I can. You, presumably, also can get the information from the listing in my library. The book seems to have been "A Golden Nature Guide," published by Golden Press in New York. The last date I can find is 1957. Hope this helps.

Good luck!

Best regards,

Barry Wiegand

P.S., the cover shown in my LT listing is the one on this book.

Lähettänyt: bwiegand 8:27 pm (EST) Oct 24, 2007

Hi Glanecia: yes, page 4 does indeed start with those words. It is a Golden Guide book, "Rocks and Minerals" by Herbert S. Zim and Paul R. Shaffer, Illustrated by Raymond Perlman. The isbn is 0-307-24499-7 and it was published in 1957 by Golden Press. I have had it since I was a child.
Regards,
Tiffin

Lähettänyt: tiffin 8:23 pm (EST) Oct 24, 2007

Glanecia,

I noticed a intriguing ?disparity? in your library. You have 21 Christianity-tagged books and 20 Neopagan-tagged books. Are/were you making a compare and contrast examination? Are/were you both, one after the other or simultaneously? I don't think I've ever seen that combination before.

Nice collection overall, btw, especially your sf/f tags!

-Danny

Lähettänyt: buchleser 7:31 am (EST) Oct 7, 2007

So didja catch Order of the Phoenix yet? I ended up going to a 12:30 showing last night and found it to be pretty good, though they switched a good amount of stuff around.

Lähettänyt: kawika 3:06 pm (EST) Jul 11, 2007

Wow, we do have a lot of books in common...great minds think alike!

Lähettänyt: sshouse 11:47 am (EST) Jul 10, 2007

Cool..I just have too many books. I think it was only 10 dollars for a year. Not too bad. Your collection is very nice. :o)

Lähettänyt: PaganGoddess 11:06 pm (EST) May 23, 2007

ooooo the fae are baaaad in D&D. Of course, if you were playing Changeling, then you could be one of the fae.

It's actually amazing to me how much RPG stuff I have in my collection. It's mostly due to the Vampire obssession from the 90s when we were playing online all the time in addition to having a regular gaming group. I was a starving college student and all that, but was always able to scrape enough money together for the latest White Wolf Vampire books. Priorities, priorities.

Lähettänyt: kawika 5:07 pm (EST) May 20, 2007

Thanks for the comment!

I got the Star Wars RPG for a few different reasons, none of which take precedence over the other, as they are all pretty much equally geeky. The simplest is that I'm a Star Wars geek. That being said, it's kind of weird that I knew there was the original game put out by West End Games, but never got that one probably because when it was out, my friends and I were playing other games.

The second reason is that I'm an RPG geek. Looking at my tags, it's not easy to miss that part. There's something interesting to me about how people break down their created worlds and provide mechanics to work within that world. It's doubly interesting when it's a world that someone else has created and the authors have to come up with mechanics to make someone else's vision go.

Lastly, the system used in the Star Wars was developed from, and spelled the demise of, a roleplaying system I REALLY liked, called Alternity. Wizards of the Coast was putting out Alternity as mostly a space opera setting, but left their rules open enough that you could apply the system to any setting you wanted. This spawned the X-Files-ish setting of Dark Matter, which I loved, and was the precursor to the d20 system and book format. I was actually kind of put out when Wizards announced they were going to shut Alternity down, though I understood how much easier it would be for them to market a sci-fi setting under the Star Wars license. I didn't have to like it, though. But, geek that I am, I bought the core book and a few of the supplements to read, though I have yet to play the game with anybody using that setting.

Lähettänyt: kawika 2:56 pm (EST) May 20, 2007