Sign-In
Cart
True Color: The Strange and Spectacular Quest to Define Color--From Azure to Zinc Pink
Hardcover
Biographies GeneralCognitionGeneral World History
Publisher Price: $32.00
Please select the version of book you would like to purchase.
ISBN10: 1524733032
ISBN13: 9781524733032
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: Mar 31 2026
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.17
Height: 1.11 Width: 6.31 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781524733032
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: Mar 31 2026
Pages: 320
Weight: 1.17
Height: 1.11 Width: 6.31 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
A kaleidoscopic journey through the secret history of hues--and the story of the obsessive genius behind the definitions of colors we use today, from the beloved author of Word by Word Wildly entertaining and bountifully informative; I couldn't have enjoyed myself more. --Benjamin Dreyer, New York Times bestselling author of Dreyer's English
begonia (n.): 3 -s: a deep pink that is bluer, lighter, and stronger than average coral (see coral 3b), bluer than fiesta, and bluer and stronger than sweet william -- called also gaiety What could bluer than fiesta possibly mean? While editing dictionaries for Merriam-Webster, Kory Stamper found herself drawn again and again to the whimsical color definitions in Webster's Third New International Dictionary--especially when compared to the dry and impersonal entries that filled the rest of the volume. Stamper couldn't help but wonder: Who was the voice behind these peculiar definitions? Meet I. H. Godlove, an erratic but brilliant up-and-coming scientist who was one of the experts Merriam-Webster hired in 1930 to help revise the dictionary to reflect a rapidly modernizing world. His fascinating life mirrors the wild and winding journey that color science, color psychology, and color production took through the twentieth century. Stamper tracks these industries as they move into the atomic age and intertwine in strange and surprising ways, spanning two world wars and involving chemical explosions, an unexpected suicide, dramatic office politics, and an extraordinary love story. Filled with captivating facts about color words and colors themselves--did you know that the word puke used to refer to a fashionable shade of reddish-brown before it was associated with vomit?--and fueled by Stamper's inexhaustible curiosity, True Color will transform the way you see the world, from black-and-white to Technicolor.
Also from
Stamper, Kory
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
$11.99
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
$236.28
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man
Trump, Mary L.
Hardcover
$9.99
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
$30.40
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
From $12.99
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
$12.99
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
From $12.99
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
From $12.99
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
$11.99
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
$88.50
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
$17.05
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Wittman, Robert K.
Kinney, David
Paperback
From $10.99
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
$20.89
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
$9.99
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
$17.05
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
$9.99
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
From $14.99
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
From $19.99
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
From $19.99
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
From $12.99
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover
$28.80