This weekend's reading nibbles will include Hope Diamond - The Legendary History Of A Cursed Gem by Richard Kurin.
I've been looking forward to this one for some time as it promises to weigh the facts against the legend and get to the root of many of the ancillary rumors and tall tales surrounding the blue diamond. Is it cursed? Did its owners suffer tragedy? Was its provenance murky and questionable?
Answer these to some degree of satisfaction and I will be an instant fan.
As you know, so much about diamonds and gemstones are wrapped up in the myth of rarity and exclusivity. The Hope Diamond is rare, to be sure. But are all diamonds so very rare? Of course the good people at deBeers would like us to think so.
Let's hope that by Kurin helping to demystify some of the process of the changing of hands, the trading, the hawking, the swapping, the stealing, the dropping, that goes on before a diamond gets into the hands of Mrs. Harry Winston (and then finally the Smithsonian, its final resting place), maybe the rest of us will begin to understand that the very same process goes on with each and every diamond in the window of the jewelry store.
That's right, every single one. Even mine. Even yours.