India's rich heritage of jeweled artistry is expressed in extravagant and opulent creations that range from ornaments for every part of the body to ceremonial court objects such as boxes, daggers, and thrones. Treasures from India presents more than sixty iconic works from the renowned Al-Thani collection, including pieces created for the imperial Mughals in the seventeenth century, others made for the nizams of Hyderabad and the maharajas of the Rajput courts from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, Indian-inspired jewelry fashioned by Cartier and other Western firms, and contemporary designs. The lucid text discusses the significance of these objects within the history of Indian jeweled arts, demonstrating how they stand among the highest expressions of Indian culture.

The tale begins over three-hundred years ago, when the Fair People—the goblins, fairies, dragons, and other fabled and fantastic creatures of a dozen lands—fled the Old World for the New, seeking haven from the ways of Man. With them came their precious jewels: diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls... But then the Fair People vanished, taking with them their twelve fabulous treasures. And they remained hidden until now... Across North America, these twelve treasures, over ten-thousand dollars in precious jewels, are buried. The key to finding each can be found within the twelve full color paintings and verses of The Secret. Yet The Secret is much more than that. At long last, you can learn not only the whereabouts of the Fair People's treasure, but also the modern forms and hiding places of their descendants: the Toll Trolls, Maitre D'eamons, Elf Alphas, Tupperwerewolves, Freudian Sylphs, Culture Vultures, West Ghosts and other delightful creatures in the world around us. The Secret is a field guide to them all. Many "armchair treasure hunt" books have been published over the years, most notably Masquerade (1979) by British artist Kit Williams. Masquerade promised a jewel-encrusted golden hare to the first person to unravel the riddle that Williams cleverly hid in his art. In 1982, while everyone in Britain was still madly digging up hedgerows and pastures in search of the golden hare, The Secret: A Treasure Hunt was published in America. The previous year, author and publisher Byron Preiss had traveled to 12 locations in the continental U.S. (and possibly Canada) to secretly bury a dozen ceramic casques. Each casque contained a small key that could be redeemed for one of 12 jewels Preiss kept in a safe deposit box in New York. The key to finding the casques was to match one of 12 paintings to one of 12 poetic verses, solve the resulting riddle, and start digging. Since 1982, only two of the 12 casques have been recovered. The first was located in Grant Park, Chicago, in 1984 by a group of students. The second was unearthed in 2004 in Cleveland by two members of the Quest4Treasure forum. Preiss was killed in an auto accident in the summer of 2005, but the hunt for his casques continues.

Since ancient times the world's most powerful people have collected together priceless objects for their own indulgence, often artifacts with an element of the strange and wonderful, dazzling with gold and glittering with gemstones.

Provides the solution for finding each of the twelve insect jewels which were hidden in different parts of the country from the clues that were given in the author's previous work "A Treasure's Trove, " and profiles the readers who found the jewels.

When preschool teacher Leslie McCollom created the Preschool Gems Twitter feed, it was because precious jewels were slipping through her fingers every day. Jewels like, "My mom lived in the 90's," “I'm feeling poisonous, baby kitty,” and “OK, but I'm still a dragon.” Although she swore she’d remember these gems forever, in five minutes they would vanish, never to be heard by human ears again. So she became a covert anthropologist in the underground world of children, and started carefully cataloging them, and has been gracing the Twitterverse with her findings ever since—such as: “When I went to the chainsaw store I saw someone with REAL bubble gum.” “There's a wolf in my tummy and a porcupine in my bum.” "I don't care about time outs. I only care about my life." "Who are me?” “I love David Bowie. I’m going to marry David Bowie.” Preschool Gems is a collection of the most bizarre, hilarious, jaw-dropping things overheard at Leslie’s school. By turns sweet, sinister, and naively sincere, these treasures prove that kids are really just miniature people who are weirder and a lot less inhibited than their adult counterparts.