This books shows truly extraordinary creations in an amazing variety of materials and techniques. I own "1000 rings" and "500 brooches" and had therefore equally great expectations for this collection. However, in the order of publication of these books there seems to be a trend towards more emphasis on bizarreness at the cost of esthetics and wearability. Originality should not mean that functionality must be reduced in order to count as "art jewelry". Vice versa it seems that jewelry in traditional designs and techniques is not worth selecting (although very often they require much better skills). Many of the pieces would be more suited to appear in a collection of art sculptures rather than jewelry. Finally, since there was no lack of entries (more than 3000), it is a pity that several nearly identical entries from the same artists were chosen instead of giving a different artist a chance to display his or her work (example: two bracelets made from used coffee filters; the originality is appreciated but one piece would have sufficed to present the idea). I am curious how "500 Necklaces" will turn out.

Exhibit A in the case against buying books without being able to browse them first. If strapping a can opener to your wrist with adhesive tape counts as a bracelet, then there are 500, but many are pretense and most are unwearable. This book is just silly.

The book is the best quality in printing and photography, as in all the other Lark books that I've seen. The bracelets chosen for inclusion in the book are a little too "way out" in their styling for my taste.