The Secret Lives of Color Hardcover – October 24, 2017

Wow if you really want an in depth coverage of the history of colors then buy this immediately. I loved it!

Fascinating and lyrical, I've bought this for several friends.

BUY!! NO KIDDING!! ENGAGING AND FUN AND GAME CHANGER: I'm a little hard to get going into stories. I'm A.D.D. and I just need hooks. I didn't really expect this to be more than a need-to-read for professional upgrading. I especially struggle with dry stories, which this seemed to HAVE to be, right? A book on color. Come on. I expected this book to be at least a little helpful with understanding color and understanding color benefits basically all areas of life (in some way or another).But WOW. I am reading this book and I. Am. Engaged!! That sounds cheesy, but MAN is it filled with really *really* cool facts and somehow it's like reading a book of trivia that is also profoundly impacting my entire world of color understanding. It's not just helping a little; this book is re-framing color for me. CLAPS to the author!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you SO much! Just. I'm stunned. And so impressed. Thank you!

Book was damaged. Needed to be cushioned before placing in shipping box. It had been dropped hard enough to bend 3 of the corners and top and bottom of spine. So far, the book is very interesting. First damaged item I have had from Amazon. Undamaged, I would have rated it a 5.

What a great book! One of my favorites. I have read it and listened to the audiobook and still go back and read sections again. A great book to give for anyone interested in art and color.

Lo vengo queriendo desde hace mucho, si eres amante del diseño y buscas un libro que no sea el típico libro sobre el color este es el adecuado. Tiene la historia sobre más de 100 colores y algunas historias atrás de cada uno, es un libro muy entretenido. Recomendadisimo, no es grande pero si tiene pasta dura y es gordito

This is a delightfully crafted mini coffee-table book of the best kind. The book begins with a general introduction to the topic of color including the general physics of light, psychology and culture and materials. The rest of the book is divided into color types like "white" featuring related color names like "silver, ivory" and so forth. Each section is a quick, but literate discussion of how each color was made and has been used in history, including some of the less-savory implications. The quest for pretty colors can come with a steep price in terms of toxicity or wars over possessing the raw materials (but we are learning to be more thoughtful). This book knows that color also adds meaning to our lives - a world without flowers, rainbows or glass beads would be far less joyful.

This book is saturated with color. Literally.The chapters are white, yellow, orange, pink, red, purple, blue, green, brown, and black. Each chapter starts with a two page spread of the color with some variety of tone and hue - like a extract from a massive color wheel) and a three to four page history/commentary about that specific family. Then 6 - 8 members of that color family with two to four pages of interesting history as well a thick strip of color on each outside margin of that 'sub-chapter'.To give an example: under Purple is Tyrian purple, Archil, Magenta, Mauve, Heliotrope, and Violet.Under Green is Verdigris, Absinthe, Emerald, Kelly Green, Scheele's Gree, Terre Verte, Avocado and Celadon.Then there are the fun colors that St. Clair added in the ending glossary like Livid (sort of a bruise-color); Chartreuse (a pale yellow-green); Nymphea (mid-pinkish purple); Quimper (soft cornflower blue like dusk); Oxblood (dark rust-red) and many more.I have to admit I will likely always remember the color puce - part of the pink family - as the story goes that King Louis XVI was watching his wife trying on a new dress that was a brown-pink-gray. Many would have called it 'faded rose' but he called it 'the color of fleas'. Yep, puce is flea-color.*This review is identical to that posted to GoodReads.com