Book: Buy Color: A Natural History of the Palette Online

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Why am I posing these questions, well Victoria is just the person to tell us auhtoritatively & accurately. I only had a few quibbles with the entire 400+ pages, one was an editor's slip that allowed India to be separated into Bangladesh, India & Pakistan in 1947! Which I am sure the author knows was not quite the instant route it seems (first it was the eastern half of the division known as Pakistan i.e. East Pakistan which then separated in 1971 I believe from West Pakistan and became Bangladesh). Another was the rather simlplistic way she refers to chemical formulas, yes of course AsS is a combination of 1 molecule each of arsenic & sulphur whereas As2S3 combines in the ratio of 2:3, however whether this means in fact the latter is any more poisonous than the former can not be assumed from the chemical formula....if I remember my chemistry correctly you need to understand which is more soluble in water or most readily adsorbed in the stomach (a solution of HCl I believe). If the author has confirmed this it was not clear from the text and copiuous and excellent notes. Lead as usual gets a poor press, it would have been nice to see it labelled as harmless until compounds are airborne and/or actually disolved. Lastly I really enjoyed reading about FDA "enforced inks" (as in tattoo inks. In my days of permitted food & cosmetic colours the term was "FDA Approved", however the process of approval and batch certification would no doubt be viewed as enforcement by many I suspect!

Please don't let my minor quibbles spoil a interesting, unique and very accurate book which I found a delight to read and one I look forward to re-reading, somehting I hardly ever do - life is too short!

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