"Beautifully written and thoughtfully produced . . . Full of anecdotes and fascinating research, this elegant compendium has all the answers."
--Nina Martyris, NPR's Best Books of 2017 "If you adore color, you'll love
The Secret Lives of Color. This passionate and majestic compedium . . . will leave you bathed in the gorgeous optics of light."
--Elle "A kaleidoscope of charming, discursive essays . . . A light and lively guide [that] offers plenty of fresh clues for the brain's colorful calculations."
--The Economist "Fascinating."
--BuzzFeed "Gorgeous."
--The Guardian "The history of colors, it turns out, is the story of science as well as art. Kassia St. Clair's entertaining book brings them both into vivid relief."
--The Wall Street Journal
"
The Secret Lives of Color by Kassia St. Clair presents readers with [an] opportunity to relish in otherwise mundane aspects of reality. . . . An engaging mix of aesthetic analysis and optical science, it could make anyone a keen observer of our kaleidoscopic world."
--Popular Science "Riveting . . . diligently researched . . . Whatever your opinion of a shade,
The Secret Lives of Color provides some illuminating perspectives on it."
--Hyperallergic "A mind-expanding tour of the world without leaving your paintbox. Every color has a story, and here are some of the most alluring, alarming, and thought-provoking."
--Simon Garfield,
New York Times bestselling author of
Just My Type: A Book About Fonts "St. Clair delivers a mix of science, humor, and art history in this collection of bite-sized essays on the cultural and social lore of colors. . . . Her sentences guarantee sustained reading. . . . [Her] rhetoric beautifies the form of the brief essay."
--
Publishers Weekly "
The Secret Lives of Color holds surprise and satisfaction at every striation of the rainbow."
--Booklist "Brimming with facts, historical insights and curious tales."
--Elle Decoration "Weirdly fascinating."
--Wired "Charming."
--The Financial Times "Fascinating insights . . . a lexicon of colors, simultaneously revealing the cultural attitudes that determine our responses to them."
--Country Living "What
The Secret Lives of Color offers really is, in some sense, a flash portrait of human civilization, a zigzagging and unpredictable exploration of how significantly color has shaped histories and disciplines, fueled empires, changed the nature of war and caused species to flourish or face extinction."
--Chemistry World "A must for anyone interested in color [or] decorating, but also language, culture and art."
--The Chromologist "A work of art in its own right,
The Secret Lives Of Color is a beautiful tactile book."
--The Pool "St. Clair serves up a chromatic buffet."
--Nature
