Reddit mentions: The best geochemistry books

The Mineralogical Society published a book called "Rare Earth Minerals: Chemistry, Origin, and Ore Deposits". I own it and like it, and it sounds closest to what you'd want. My only complaint is that, because each chapter is a paper by a different author, the book doesn't flow that well or build on concepts in a logical manner like most textbooks. However, its still loaded with useful information that any inspiring REE-geoscientist would want to have access to. I'm not sure a "textbook" style publication exists yet for the REE's. REE ore deposits are a very understudied field of ore deposits until recently. There is also "Extractive Metallurgy of the Rare Earths" (which I also own) which has a few great introduction chapters about rare earth chemistry, economics, and mining, but then in subsequent chapters jumps into really detailed metallurgical processes regarding the extraction and processing of rare earths that I am totally clueless on and have no interest in. I'd almost recommend it just for the first few chapters, but the book is pretty pricey.

Edit: Links: http://www.amazon.com/Rare-Earth-Minerals-Chemistry-Mineralogical/dp/0412610302 http://www.amazon.com/Extractive-Metallurgy-Rare-Earths-Gupta/dp/0415333407/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332222202&sr=1-1

Edit: If you have any specific questions feel free to message me. I'm working on my masters studying REE ore deposits at the moment. I'm definitely not an expert on REE's (yet?), but I may be able to answer certain questions or forward them to someone who can.

If you've never done Petrology before aquiring a good lab guide will be very useful, the one my university recommended us to get was:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rocks-Minerals-Thin-Section-Colour/dp/1874545170/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1451826653&sr=1-1
This helped in my first semester of Petrology a great deal. To accompany this I also, as Of-Quartz said, took pictures using my phone of the thin section down the microscope. I then created a study guide to accompany these pcitures, Example for Olivine:
http://imgur.com/7KBPGE4
The exam itself was based more around the theory side of petrology, End member diagrams such as Kynaite, Silimanite and Andalusite, along with general questions about Bowen's recation series and other figures that help explain why the thin section you're looking at, looks like that.

As for Sedimentology and strat you'll be looking at photos of outcrops and sedimentary successions alot. Sedimentary logs, Bouma sequences and identifying features such as Load casts, flame structures and dessictaion cracks to name a few.

Just make sure you understand the fundamentals and everything else should come to you easily.

3rd Year geology student (UK), Taken Sed/Petro classes every semester.

I too have trouble with this, but I'm making slow progress purely through practice. I find this book quite helpful: Rocks and Minerals in Thin Section. Other good resources I've found online is Alex Herriot's collection and this collection of thin section from the Bushveld Complex

"Extractive Metallurgy of the Rare Earths" by Gupta et al is essentially the textbook on it. Considering its publication date, its extremely thorough, but doesn't include some very important new developments in separation tek made in the last few years.

For the geology side, this book: http://www.amazon.com/Rare-Earth-Minerals-Chemistry-Mineralogical/dp/0412610302 is excellent.

Its important to note that rare earth deposits are extremely variable. There are numerous types of deposits with different ore minerals in different geologic environments. They will all require special consideration and the mining and separation processes needs to be tailor-made to the specific deposit.

Let me know if you have more questions.

Source: I was the geologist at Mt. Pass until we went bankrupt.

We used Klein and Dutrow for our mineralogy class and I thought it was a pretty good book (but a bit lacking on optics). I kept it for a reference book as it details many of the more common minerals in identification, structure, occurrences, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/Geochemistry-William-M-White/dp/0470656689

This book is much better. I have Faure's book on Isotopes, his writing is clunky and reading it tough. My geochem class used White's book and it was very easy to follow.

http://www.amazon.com/Colour-Atlas-Rocks-Minerals-Section/dp/1874545170/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462489109&sr=8-1&keywords=An+Atlas+of+Minerals+in+Thin+Section

Get this book! It's awesome for minerals.

Deer, Howie and Zusmann is the best single reference for chemical, structural and optical properties. (It will not tell you how to use a petrographic microscope nor why substitution occurs as some mineralogy texts do).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rocks-Minerals-Thin-Section-Colour/dp/1874545170

This book did wonders for me during my degree, give it a look, worth getting a second hand copy on the cheap.

If your working with thin sections i'd suggest Gribble and Halls book, Not sure what level of detail your looking for but MacKenzie's rocks and minerals in thin section good to get the basics of optical mineralogy from.

A mineralogy textbook would be a good start, this is the one we used when I took the class (https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Mineral-Science-Cornelis-Klein/dp/0471721573). Or maybe this (https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Mineralogy-William-Nesse/dp/0199827389), although I haven't read it myself.

An Atlas of Minerals in Thin Section

https://www.amazon.com/dp/019516038X/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_api_5x3kxbQADWAZZ

A must have https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Mineral-Science-Cornelis-Klein/dp/0471721573