On My Book shelf: Color by Victoria Finlay

I've read this book about 5 times. It is a mixture of adventure travel, history and science and traces the use of pigments from the prehistoric use of oxides and ochers through sources in the natural world (carmine came from insects) to the synthesis of modern chemically based color. I like knowing where the pigments came from and the journey Victoria went on is a refreshing read for a mostly armchair traveler.