FOLLOWING last month’s cold snap, there was a beautiful satellite image of Scotland that showed the Highlands and Border regions covered in snow; the green Lowlands were spared.
It was plain to see that the central belt, where the majority of Scots, live of course, sits literally between a rock and a hard place. Which brings us to Hettie Judah’s gorgeous book on petromania – stone worship.
How could you resist a work that ends with something she calls a “lexicon of lithic lingo”? Judah tells us about xenoliths and tektite, fantasy cuts and the ecosexual. And check out the index – references to Scotland feature on pages 50-52, 53, 56, 248-9, 282, and 284-5, more than any other country as far as I can see. Rock on …
