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.

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

The book is very informative, it could be a text book instead of a pocket guide. I was hoping for a quick Rock/Mineral ID, pocket sized, guide for central United States.

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.

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 While the explication of Miller Indices was somewhat rarefied and outdated, the volume is recommended for all serious rockhounds and amateur geologists.

This thing is great. The pictures and mineral information are easy to use and useful. Will be using this for a gold exploration project this summer, and having it in my pocket will really help. Has a really nice summation of most of the different types of rocks that I forgot about since optics and petrology, complete with hand sample and thin section pics.If you want a detailed, useful field guide, this is the one. It is written for people who already know a little bit about minerals, which makes it very useful for geologists and rock hounds alike. For 13 bucks you can't go wrong, even if the binding is not the best quality.Enjoy, and cheers.Igor

My husband cuts and polishes cabashons and a friend of ours went to the Mineral Show that we were at and showed a strong interest in the different minerals and had purchased a few and started asking different questions. We had gotten the guide when we started about 20 years ago and still refer to it every now and then so for a new beginner it gives outstanding information on different minerals and the hardness and the metrics involved to assist in identifing the different stones. A very informative book to help you know and learn the different values of the minerals and rocks.