by 2. Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse - Olcay Sert
3. The Grammar of Knowledge: A Cross-Linguistic Typology - Alexandra Aikhenvald and R.M.W. Dixon (Eds.)
4. Rethinking Language, Mind, and World Dialogically : Interactional and Contextual Theories of Human Sense-Making – Per Linnel
5. Salvation - Peter F Hamilton
6. The Expression of Negation - Laurence R. Horn (Ed.)
7. Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind - Arthur Zajon
8. Bad Words and What They Say About Us - Philip Gooden
9 & 10. Tintin on the Moon - Herge
11. The East, the West and Sex: A History = Richard Bernstein
12. A Pragmatic Approach to English Language Teaching and Production - Lala U. Takeda and Megumi Okugiri (Eds.)
13. Salvation Lost - Peter F. Hamilton
14. The Written Language Bias in Linguistics: Its Nature, Origins and Transformations- Per Linnel
15. Who Cut the Cheese? A Cultural History of the Fart - Jim Dawson
16. Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue - John McWhorter
17. The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War and the Evolution of Us – Adam Rutherford
18. The Secret Lives of Colour - Kassia St CLair
328 pp.
This was an absolute gem of a book. Each chapter was a page or two long and dealt with a very particular part of the visible spectrum and the dyes and agents that produce this colour. There were chapters on familiar colours like Khaki, Ivory, Ginger and Avocado, as well as some less familiar colours like Celadon, Cerulean, Orchil and Madder.
The author delves into the history, culture and chemistry of various dyes, hues and colouring agents, and a hair raising ride is sometimes is - some of the ingredients and processes were alarmingly toxic. Cyanide, lead and other lovelies were commonplace in dye, paint and make-up in the past. From ancient times we have descriptions of lead bars left in pots of vinegar and animal dung to create lead acetate and the basis for white lead paint and makeup. 'Elf and safety didn't seem to figure too highly in the quest to produce dyes and pigments in times past.
There is a wealth of interesting detail contained throughout - from references to sumptuary laws that forbade certain classes of persons from wearing certain coloured clothes to such figures as Philip the Good (1396-1467) who only wore black to commemorate his assassinated father John the Fearless. The names alone prompt me to go to Wikipedia. There is a reference to Picasso's blue period which was apparently brought on by the very public suicide of a friend in a cafe in Monmartre.
The whole story of colour is littered with improbable laboratory accidents, dishonest merchants adulterating their stock, lunatic obsessives traveling to the ends of the earth in search of ingredients, laborious processes to extract a minuscule amount of some chemical from a rare plant or animal or mineral; mysticism and superstition are often present in full measure.
It really brought home to me how we take brightly coloured items for granted in our modern lives and the fact that this brightly colored man-made world based on durable, stable dyes is a comparatively recent development. I look around me as I type this and am struck by the riot of colour in my living room - the furnishings, book covers, children's toys, food and drink packaging and so on are all saturated with colour.
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