Petula
Clark sings one of my favorite songs, "Color My World" and
so does Kermit the Frog with "The Rainbow Connection" so it
came as no surprise when Color: a Natural History of the Palette,
by Victoria Finlay caught my eye on the shelf at the book store. What
a great read it was! As it turns out, color (for dyes, and painting)
can be very dangerous. Some were poisonous, some came from hard to
access places (mines, before dynamite, etc). Some were so valuable
that workers were searched every day when they left work. Many
contained urine (there is one hysterical story about Londoners and
the surrounding towns about this). The author goes on a world tour to
find out the origins of colors, how they were discovered, created,
and so forth, often times going in and out of war zones.
While
Color was about paints and dyes, The Secret Language of
Color: Science, Nature, History, Culture, Beauty of Red, Orange,
Yellow, Green, Blue & Violet, by Joann Eckstut and Arielle
Eckstut covers a wider spectrum of topics. There are chapters on the
physics and chemistry of colors, of where the colors are found in
nature, in animals, in the universe as well as paintings and dyes.
Between the text and the pictures, you'll learn a lot!
On
a recommendation from Constant
Reader I read Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color that
Changed the World, by Simon Garfield. I had no idea how important
coal-tar was! Once considered waste material, it would be used to
create something called a rain coat, ;-) in creosote on railroad
ties, in medicines, and, (the reason for this book) dyes. Some of the
colors still contained poison, causing rashes and other skin
problems, and when used in sweets, making people sick. There was
quite a bit of chemistry involved, obviously (!) which made it an
excellent companion book to Color: a Natural History of the
Palette.
The
'chemistry' aspect of Mauve brought to mind the Flavia books.
Set in an old English manor house in 1950 the main character, Flavia
de Luca, is an 11 year old girl who loves chemistry. (She especially
enjoys poisons and taints her older sister's lipstick with poison
ivy.) A dead bird, an old stamp, and a red-headed stranger sets the
stage for the mystery in The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie,
the first in the series by author Alan Bradley. A young adult read
that is enjoyed by many of my friends, all of us 'a certain age'!
:-)
Reading
Hermit With Dog
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