Here are 100 books that Stones for Ibarra fans have personally recommended if you like
Stones for Ibarra.
Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by work and the ways that it organizes the rest of life. Mining is one of those activities that brings together economics, politics, gender, class, kinship, and cosmology in especially tight proximity. I am also fascinated by Latin America, a region where mining has been important for thousands of years. These interests led me to become an anthropologist specializing in mining in Mexico and Colombia. It has been my privilege to work in this area for over twenty-five years now, making lifelong friends, learning about their lives and struggles, and sharing that knowledge with students and readers.
I first read this book while I was conducting anthropological fieldwork in the mines of Guanajuato, Mexico. Even though the conditions in the mines I visited were somewhat better, and even though I was in silver and gold mines and not coal mines, I was amazed by the continuity in mining practices and the kinds of conflicts that emerge, such as the danger caused when miners are paid by the amount produced since they don’t want to take the time needed to support the tunnels with wooden timbering.
I also love that it includes descriptions of women and girls as mineworkers, which very few books about mining do.
Zola's masterpiece of working life, Germinal (1885), exposes the inhuman conditions of miners in northern France in the 1860s. By Zola's death in 1902 it had come to symbolise the call for freedom from oppression so forcefully that the crowd which gathered at his State funeral chanted 'Germinal! Germinal!'. The central figure, Etienne Lantier, is an outsider who enters the community and eventually leads his fellow-miners in a strike protesting against pay-cuts - a strike which becomes a losing battle against starvation, repression, and sabotage. Yet despite all the violence and disillusion which rock the mining community to its foundations,…
Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by work and the ways that it organizes the rest of life. Mining is one of those activities that brings together economics, politics, gender, class, kinship, and cosmology in especially tight proximity. I am also fascinated by Latin America, a region where mining has been important for thousands of years. These interests led me to become an anthropologist specializing in mining in Mexico and Colombia. It has been my privilege to work in this area for over twenty-five years now, making lifelong friends, learning about their lives and struggles, and sharing that knowledge with students and readers.
This was one of my favorite books as a child and probably one reason I became an anthropologist of mining.
Though I wouldn’t have put it this way at the time, I found it fascinating that in a place where everything is doing the same job, especially a highly dangerous and damaging job, other aspects of culture coalesce around that job and its meanings—things like religion, kinship, gender, leisure, ecology, etcetera. I was deeply moved by the description of the vast slag heap that slowly came to tower over the town, eventually engulfing the narrator’s small house.
All six episodes of the BBC adaptation of Richard Llewellyn's classic novel set in a Welsh mining community at the turn of the century. Gwilym (Stanley Baker) and Beth Morgan (Siân Phillips) work their hardest to provide for their children, but these are the years before the unions improved the miner's lot, and times are very hard indeed. However, the community in which the Morgans live is a close-knit one, and they are grateful for all the help they receive, especially from the Rev. Gruffydd (Gareth Thomas).
Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by work and the ways that it organizes the rest of life. Mining is one of those activities that brings together economics, politics, gender, class, kinship, and cosmology in especially tight proximity. I am also fascinated by Latin America, a region where mining has been important for thousands of years. These interests led me to become an anthropologist specializing in mining in Mexico and Colombia. It has been my privilege to work in this area for over twenty-five years now, making lifelong friends, learning about their lives and struggles, and sharing that knowledge with students and readers.
This is not only a great ethnography (a book based on long-term anthropological fieldwork) giving a splendidly detailed and deeply humane account of the lives of Bolivian tin miners and their families in the 1970s, but also one of the most effective case studies within the framework of “dependency theory.”
The title, which comes from one of the author’s interviews with a miner, captures the violence and misery of tin mining, but I also love the way the book portrays its protagonists as ordinary people living and giving meaning to their lives as best they can.
In this powerful anthropological study of a Bolivian tin mining town, Nash explores the influence of modern industrialization on the traditional culture of Quechua-and-Aymara-speaking Indians.
Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by work and the ways that it organizes the rest of life. Mining is one of those activities that brings together economics, politics, gender, class, kinship, and cosmology in especially tight proximity. I am also fascinated by Latin America, a region where mining has been important for thousands of years. These interests led me to become an anthropologist specializing in mining in Mexico and Colombia. It has been my privilege to work in this area for over twenty-five years now, making lifelong friends, learning about their lives and struggles, and sharing that knowledge with students and readers.
I was simultaneously horrified and riveted by this painstaking, searing account of a mine fire that took place in the Mexican mining center of Pachuca in 1920 and the subsequent coverup by the government and media.
The underground fire that burns even as those on the surface go about their business is both historical fast and a metaphor for the “silent fury” of many Mexicans over the inhumanity of corporations operating in their country, and over the conditions of impunity created by legal and political institutions.
This fury continues to burn in the 2020s, Herrera suggests, just as it did in the 1920s.
On March 10, 1920, in Pachuca, Mexico, the Compania de Santa Gertrudis - the largest employer in the region, and a subsidiary of the United States Smelting, Refining and Mining Company - may have committed murder.
The alert was first raised at six in the morning: a fire was tearing through the El Bordo mine. After a brief evacuation, the mouths of the shafts were sealed. Company representatives hastened to assert that "no more than ten" men remained inside the mineshafts, and that all ten were most certainly dead. Yet when the mine was opened six days later, the death…
My passion for mining history was sparked when I lived in Fort Resolution, Northwest Territories. One of my students wanted to write a short essay on the Pine Point Mine, which he claimed had cheated the community by making so much money, providing few jobs, and leaving a big mess after closing. I offered to drive the student out to tour the abandoned mine and was blown away by the dozens of open pits and abandoned haul roads that had been carved out of the northern forest. From that day on, I was hooked on mining history, hungry to learn as much as possible about these abandoned places.
This one challenged me to get out of my historian’s bubble and confront the impacts of mining in the present and near future, especially those associated with the looming energy transition. Pollon blew me away with sobering facts, such as the need to mine 3 billion tons of minerals to stay below 2 degrees of global temperature increases.
I was also captivated by the author’s accounts of his travels to the front lines of the critical minerals boom, which paint a vivid portrait of the vast scale of development associated with lithium, copper, and nickel development. Pollon’s book reminded me that technological solutions to climate change (important as they are) come with their own environmental and human costs.
A harrowing journey through the past, present, and future of mining, this expertly-researched account ends on a vision for how industry can better serve the needs of humanity.
A race is on to exploit the last bonanzas of gold, silver, and industrial metals left on Earth. These metals are not only essential for all material comfort and need, but for the transition to clean energy: in the coming decades, billions of tons of copper, nickel, silver, and other metals will be required to build electric vehicles, solar and wind installations, and green infrastructure. We need more metals than ever before,…
I was an Eagle Scout selected for the 1964 North Pole expedition, graduate of MIT with both BS and MS degrees in Aero Astro – yes, a true MIT rocket scientist. I quickly took planning roles at the “bleeding edge” of technology: missiles, nuclear power, heart pumps, DNA sequencing, telemedicine… In every case, however, the organizations were plagued by incompetence and corruption. As an individual, I interacted with activist leaders in movements for: peace, climate, social justice, ending poverty, etc. Again, incompetence and corruption. Throughout, I dug for answers into the wisdom of the classics and emerging viewpoints. Finally. All that effort paid off. I found the “big picture”!
A basic foundation for Collapse 2020 is the collapse timetable presented in the Limits to Growth model. A key assumption is that, as the world population increases, there will be related extractions of natural resources. If not controlled, many of those resources will run out. This book reports the status of world resources as of 2014. The “good news” – if we can call it that – is that the rates of resource depletion track closely with the Limits to Growth model. This is “good news” because it confirms that the model is sound. That’s “good” because it means we can rely on that model to plan for the future. On the other hand, it’s actually “very bad news”, because it shows the world is already in very bad condition.
As we dig, drill, and excavate to unearth the planet's mineral bounty, the resources we exploit from ores, veins, seams, and wells are gradually becoming exhausted. Mineral treasures that took millions, or even billions, of years to form are now being squandered in just centuries-or sometimes just decades.
Will there come a time when we actually run out of minerals? Debates already soar over how we are going to obtain energy without oil, coal, and gas. But what about the other mineral losses we face? Without metals, and semiconductors, how are we going to keep our industrial system running? Without…
Like with my own writing (at least I hope), I always drift toward surprises, originality, and unbounded imagination. I want the books others only whisper about, books too unique and odd for the mainstream. I want outliers and rule breakers. Authors who challenge their readers and make us question the world and our roles in it. And in what better realm to do this than in fantasy? These are books to seek out, each one worth going the extra mile to track down. Happy hunting.
With the subtitle Solve The World's Most Challenging Puzzle, how could one resist a dive into this fantastic world? Each page number represents a different room in a strange mansion with clues and riddles littered throughout. At less than 100 pages, one might think it’s quite simple, when in fact there are people still lost within the maze, unable to escape - very few have managed to find their way to the center and out again without looking up the correct path. Good fantasy is always immersive, but rarely like this.
1
author picked
Maze
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
12,
13,
14, and
15.
What is this book about?
This is not really a book. This is a building in the shape of a book...a maze. Each numbered page depicts a room in the maze. Tempted? Test your wits against mine. I guarantee that my maze will challenge you to think in ways you've never thought before. But beware. One wrong turn and you may never escape!
When I left Wisconsin and arrived for a position at the University of Alaska Anchorage, I was struck by the state’s nearly manic fear of low prices for the oil flowing from Prudhoe Bay through the Alaska (or North Slope) oil pipeline. Years later I returned to Wisconsin and quickly learned that there was relatively little interest in a pipeline that ran down the entire state in the manner of the Alaska pipeline. Only this pipeline carried synthetic crude made from natural asphalt hacked or melted out of the ground in Alberta, Canada. My interest in the environmental and political aspects of that pipeline set me on the path to a book about asphalt.
This anthology makes the case that an empire of extraction has existed from the dawn of the colonial era until deep into the 21st Century. The essays in the “Health and Environmental Justice” section are both fascinating and disturbing. And how could they not be disturbing with such words as these in chapter titles? “Uranium Mine and Mine Tailings.” “Arsenic Pollution.” “Quebec Asbestos.” Nearly every chapter in this section emphasizes the impact on indigenous populations with the chapter title on the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, being particularly stark. It opens with this: “If the Rivers Ran South.”
Over the past five hundred years, North Americans have increasingly relied on mining to produce much of their material and cultural life. From cell phones and computers to cars, roads, pipes, pans, and even wall tile, mineral-intensive products have become central to North American societies. As this process has unfolded, mining has also indelibly shaped the natural world and the human societies within it. Mountains have been honeycombed, rivers poisoned, forests leveled, and the consequences of these environmental transformations have fallen unevenly across North America. Drawing on the work of scholars from Mexico, the United States, and Canada, Mining North…
Like many people, my passions were first ignited when I was a toddler, and I mainly have my maternal grandfather to thank what for interests me. I remember coming to my grandparent’s house when I was young and watching WWII documentaries that my grandfather had on VHS (yes, I’m that old). Since then, I’ve always had a passion for history. It doesn’t really matter the subject, I’m interested in everything; from the Ottoman Empire to the Vietnam War, to the Spanish Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula, to the US-backed coup in Guatemala during the Cold War. I hope that passion for history comes through when readers explore my book.
Reading how world demand for things such as consumer electronics helps drive conflict in Central Africa as people scramble for the mineral resources required to make such electronics changed the way I think about the world. Ever since reading The Looting Machine, I felt a responsibility to at the very least pay attention to current events in countries such as Nigeria or Angola, to see how my own demand for commodities might be affecting people I will never meet all over the world. I still remember at the end of the book when Burgis quoted a Nigerian rapper when she said, “Don’t think you’re not a part of it.”
The trade in oil, gas, gems, metals and rare earth minerals wreaks havoc in Africa. During the years when Brazil, India, China and the other "emerging markets" have transformed their economies, Africa's resource states remained tethered to the bottom of the industrial supply chain. While Africa accounts for about 30 per cent of the world's reserves of hydrocarbons and minerals and 14 per cent of the world's population, its share of global manufacturing stood in 2011 exactly where it stood in 2000: at 1 percent. In his first book, The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis exposes the truth about the African…
I was introduced to Fluorescent Mineral collecting by my son. I started going to shows, joining mineral groups, and reading everything I could on fluorescent minerals. Realizing that there were no books with lots of photographs on the subject, and having written quite a few heavily illustrated books of collecting subjects, I decided to to a book that would appeal to new and old mineral collectors. The book was a success and lead to the publishing of a second book. Lots of fluorescent mineral experts helped by reviewing the text and photos for accuracy, and my publisher was pleased with the success of the books. Schiffer Books started an entirely new avenue of books on Minerals that it now publishes.
Ultraviolet Light and Fluorescent Minerals is also a pretty good read. It is a good general overview of the subject and nicely covers the field of fluorescent activators. It doesn't have many color photographs. It was written by 4 experts in the field including the late, great Thomas Warren (he passed away in 2001) who invented the portable SW mineral lamp. Another one of my favorite guys is Earl Verbeek. He is friendly and knows his rocks. He is the curator of the Sterling Hill Mining Museum.
That is the complete list of books on Fluorescent minerals, not including my two books.
This book takes a broad look at the hobby of mineral fluorescence. It offers discussions of the major fluorescent minerals and mineral groups, techniques for collection them either on field trips or through trade and purchase, and the many ways fluorescent minerals can be displayed and enjoyed in the home. Fluorescent minerals present a puzzle. Many are of quite ordinary appearance in daylight, but when placed under the invisible rays of an ultraviolet lamp in a darkened room, they suddenly glow in beautiful colors. The transformation is so marked and so mysteriously compelling that many people instantly wish to learn…
