Terry Moxon certainlky likes his agates. It is easy to see his enthusiasm and it is just as easy to appreciate it from this short book on the science of these colourful minerals. However, his is not just a casual interest. He has been involved in their study for 35 years and, for nine of these, has been a research visitor investigating them at the Department of Earth Sciences at Cambridge University.

Dorling Kindersley is well-known for producing popular reference media for beginners and enthusiasts. Its Eyewitness Guides to fossils and rocks and minerals, for example, along with their later addition, the Eyewitness Handbook of fossils, certainly makes a useful starting point for anyone new to geology or palaeontology.