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After Shawn, forever singing the virtues of audio books, praised Diamonds, I picked up a reading copy and sat down with it yesterday afternoon.

Alexander the Great, on his march into India, is said to have heard about a pit filled with diamonds. The pit was guarded by serpents whose gaze would kill a man. Alexander, eager for the diamonds, ordered that his men be given mirrors. When they approached the pit they held up the mirrors and turned the reptiles' gaze back on the snakes themselves, killing them. Alexander then ordered sheep to be slaughtered and their carcasses flung into the pit. The diamonds stuck in the fat. Vultures swooped down and devoured the diamond-studded flesh, and afterward, as they flew away, expelled a rain of diamonds into the hands of Alexander's men.

Although the writing falls short -- the author, a reporter for Rapaport Diamond Report, doesn't compose graceful or rhythmic sentences; unlike the impact of a newspaper story, which is ephemeral, a book's paragraphs and chapters deserve structure and composition -- the books capably tells the story of diamond exploration and of the De Beers cartel.