"The Secret Lives of Color" by Kassia St Clair

When you think of color, you think of the rainbow, color swaths, the color wheel, and all the various hues in between. You do not necessarily think of how these colors are made, or what the history behind the name is. In this book, St Clair does just that. She divides the rainbow into each of the basic colors (white, yellow, orange, red, green, blue, purple, brown, and black) and from there divides it further into the shades that she finds most interesting. Each entry could contain a variety of things from interesting stories about the color's use to the history behind our perception of this color to the chemical process required to make it. It is a really fascinating look at different cultures across time and space.

I loved the way that this book was structured, and how easy it was to read. Some installments did flow better than others, there were a few where I was reading the stories and had to go back and find the part that the color played in them. Which was annoying since the color is supposed to be the whole point, but I was never bored. There is also a great variety in the stories and colors presented, the author has clearly done a ton of work. There is even a list of further colors to look into if you are interested at the end!

I would highly recommend this for people who enjoy learning about the visual world, and the history behind it. This book combines chemistry, sociology, history, anthropology, and linguistics all together in its discussion, but presents it all in a user friendly way. A fascinating read, and a lot of fun too.