The Secret Lives of Color
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Narrated by:
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Kassia St. Clair
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By:
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Kassia St. Clair
About this listen
One of USA Today's “100 Books to Read While Stuck at Home During the Coronavirus Crisis"
The unforgettable, unknown history of colors and the vivid stories behind them.
“Beautifully written.... Full of anecdotes and fascinating research, this elegant compendium has all the answers.” (NPR, Best Books of 2017)
The Secret Lives of Color tells the unusual stories of 75 fascinating shades, dyes, and hues. From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso’s blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history.
In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from (whether Van Gogh’s chrome yellow sunflowers or punk’s fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture.
“This passionate and majestic compedium will leave you bathed in the gorgeous optics of light.” (Elle)
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2017 Kassia St. Clair (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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- Narrated by: Tamara Marston
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- Unabridged
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"See for yourself!" was the clarion call of the 1600s. Natural philosophers threw off the yoke of ancient authority, peered at nature with microscopes and telescopes, and ignited the scientific revolution. Artists investigated nature with lenses and created paintings filled with realistic effects of light and shadow. The hub of this optical innovation was the small Dutch city of Delft.
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Historical book about the evolution of optics through the eyes of two geniuses
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Medieval Bodies
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Just like us, medieval men and women worried about growing old, got blisters and indigestion, fell in love, and had children. And yet their lives were full of miraculous and richly metaphorical experiences radically different from our own, unfolding in a world where deadly wounds might be healed overnight by divine intervention, or where the heart of a king, plucked from his corpse, could be held aloft as a powerful symbol of political rule.
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I really wanted to love this book, but...
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A Perfect Red recounts the colorful history of cochineal, a legendary red dye that was once one of the world's most precious commodities. Treasured by the ancient Mexicans, cochineal was sold in the great Aztec marketplaces, where it attracted the attention of the Spanish conquistadors in 1519. Shipped to Europe, the dye created a sensation, producing the brightest, strongest red the world had ever seen. Soon Spain's cochineal monopoly was worth a fortune. Desperate to find their own sources of the elusive dye, the English, French, Dutch, and other Europeans tried to crack the enigma of cochineal.
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History of a peculiar substance through the ages
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The Second Book of General Ignorance
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Just when you thought that it was safe to start showing off again, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson are back with another busload of mistakes and misunderstandings. Here is a new collection of simple, perfectly obvious questions you'll be quite certain you know the answers to. Whether it's history, science, sports, geography, literature, language, medicine, the classics, or common wisdom, you'll be astonished to discover that everything you thought you knew is still hopelessly wrong.
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It's all stuff from QI
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By: John Lloyd, and others
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Paper
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- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Paper is one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past two millennia, the ability to produce it in ever more efficient ways has supported the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, and art; it has formed the foundation of civilizations, promoting revolutions and restoring stability.
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Very enjoyable
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Red Land, Black Land
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Esteemed Egyptologist Barbara Mertz updates her widely praised social history of the people of ancient Egypt, which was originally published in 1968. Combining impeccable scholarship with a delightfully personal style, the author reconstructs the life of the Egyptians from birth to death, and beyond death, too.
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Brilliant
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The Minoans were an ancient civilization that built their settlements on islands in the Aegean Sea. They lived almost 5,000 years ago and left behind traces of their lives, but not enough for people to create a complete picture. Ever since the early 20th century, the Minoans have been a subject of interest, thanks to the discoveries and excavations by Sir Arthur Evans, a British archaeologist who found the first Minoan ruins and named them after the mythological King Minos and his Minotaur.
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Scholarly
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Drawing on the latest discoveries that have only recently come to light, Scottish archaeologist Neil Oliver goes on the trail of the real Vikings. Where did they emerge from? How did they really live? And just what drove them to embark on such extraordinary voyages of discovery over 1,000 years ago? The Vikings: A New History explores many of those questions for the first time in an epic story of one of the world's great empires of conquest.
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Intriguing for a broad audience.
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Book 1
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Harry Potter has never even heard of Hogwarts when the letters start dropping on the doormat at number four, Privet Drive. Addressed in green ink on yellowish parchment with a purple seal, they are swiftly confiscated by his grisly aunt and uncle. Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a great beetle-eyed giant of a man called Rubeus Hagrid bursts in with some astonishing news: Harry Potter is a wizard, and he has a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. An incredible adventure is about to begin!
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A great reading of the wrong book
- By P on 11-24-15
By: J.K. Rowling
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How Do We Look
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- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Mary Beard
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From prehistoric Mexico to modern Istanbul, Mary Beard looks beyond the familiar canon of Western imagery to explore the history of art, religion, and humanity. Conceived as an accompaniment to How Do We Look and The Eye of Faith, the famed Civilizations shows on PBS, renowned classicist Mary Beard has created this elegant volume on how we have looked at art.
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Really needs a PDF
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Twelve Caesars
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Overall
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What does the face of power look like? Who gets commemorated in art and why? And how do we react to statues of politicians we deplore? In this book - against a background of today’s “sculpture wars” - Mary Beard tells the story of how for more than two millennia portraits of the rich, powerful, and famous in the Western world have been shaped by the image of Roman emperors, especially the “Twelve Caesars”, from the ruthless Julius Caesar to the fly-torturing Domitian.
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This foray into art history is a disappointment.
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The Reason for Flowers
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- By: Stephen Buchmann
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Flowers, and the fruits that follow, feed, clothe, sustain, and inspire all humanity. Flowers are used to celebrate all-important occasions, to express love, and are also the basis of global industries. Americans buy 10 million flowers a day, and perfumes are a worldwide industry worth $30 billion annually. Stephen Buchmann takes us along on an exploratory journey of the roles flowers play in the production of our foods, spices, medicines, and perfumes while simultaneously bringing joy and health.
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Only for the Flower Lover
- By Anonymous User on 01-19-16
By: Stephen Buchmann
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What listeners say about The Secret Lives of Color
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Elizabeth B
- 10-15-23
Super interesting!
Filled with cool stories, I completely enjoyed and am listening again it’s so full of knowledge!
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- Pookie
- 02-27-24
Wonderful read
A loooot of information packed perfectly and succinctly. Loved this book. Narration was fantastic as well. 5 stars .
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- BErvin
- 09-10-24
Wonderful! Entertaining , informative and thought provoking!
This book was such a surprise! Well written, well read and researched. As a art teacher and artist I am intimately involved with color and the broad spectrum (no pun intended) of what they can do. Once I heard the stories that surround the making and naming of each - individually- it was pure magic! What a task- and what research! And to make it so entertaining! I am always looking for stories to keep my Art History classes awake at 8am. I will definitely listen to each of these, oh so familiarly named colors again and again.Thank you!
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1 person found this helpful
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- VERONICA
- 05-13-23
Very entertaining!
Really enjoyed listening this audiobook! Wonderfully narrated, information is so easy to absorb! Now I actually Google the color codes of the colors I’ve learned about to use in my business marketing. Loved this!
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- Adam
- 08-28-21
Fascinating
Fasscinating stories of colors! Thd only difficulty with audio is not seeing the colors.
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2 people found this helpful
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- A.H. Derman
- 06-25-24
The Things We Do for Color
I loved the degree of research and how her passion for color shines through in every chapter.
I also loved her seamless integration of fact and quotes into all the ways in which we take color and chemistry for granted.
However, the book was organized by hue and shade, and this made certain sections repetitive. For instance, ultramarine, indigo, woad and Prussian blue all have overlaps that become difficult to read because they are separate sections and that means certain facts naturally recur.
Overall, the depth and beauty of her research and writing, as well as her voice and narration as bonuses makes me recommend this book without hesitation.
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- LA2742
- 04-08-21
Very educational
If color fascinates you and you like history this is a good book. Its great to listen to while working or need to multitask
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- Darby Malone
- 04-02-21
Amazing
I've always loved colors, but it never occurred to me how complicated it can be to come up with the pigments and dyes for all the colors we have become accustomed to in the 21st century.
Great book full of great stories.
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- Love books
- 02-20-23
Fantastic!
Wonderful and well worth reading or listening too. The history of each color is entertaining and enlightening.
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- Andi
- 05-21-24
Thorough!
extremely well researched, and the background of each color is fascinating-but you must have an interest in the subject matter to listen for this long.
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